Prisons Commissioner Gerard Wilson says the six prisoners who were recaptured shortly after a daring escape from the Golden Grove Prison will now be moved to the Maximum Security Prison and face additional charges.
However, Wilson yesterday confirmed to Guardian Media that inmates Mikhale Mohammed, Steffon Austin, Joshua Janet, Brent Johnson, Kerry Valentino and Atiba Sealy are still in police custody.
The men were recaptured in Las Lomas hours after escaping from Remand Prison at Golden Grove. They were part of a group of eight men who made a mad dash for freedom sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Wilson said the six prisoners were being interrogated, “because the police would have a lot of questions for them too which would probably lead to the recapture of the other two or they would get pertinent information to see if criminal charges should be laid against anyone and see if they had assistance.”
Wilson was speaking at the re-commissioning of the Prisons Sports and Recreational Club in Arouca. He said despite rumours of a seventh inmate being recaptured, he only had confirmation of six detained by police.
“I have not gotten any information that they are back in the system. I guess as soon as they return I will be informed and we will locate them in a particular place,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the prisoners would have escaped from the Remand Prison because it is located in a low-security setting. He suggested they would be moved to the MSP on their return.
“When these inmates come back, of course, we would place them in places that would make it a little more difficult.”
However, he believes not all can be housed at MSP due to overcrowding.
He added that they will also face additional charges of escaping lawful custody in addition to the murder charges they were originally incarcerated for.
Wilson said a preliminary investigation has been completed into the escape and he has instructed a Senior Superintendent to launch an enquiry.
The enquiry, he said, will determine what went wrong and what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence.
“The enquiry now will go into details and it probably looks for culpability, if any and what could we do better. And most important for me is the recommendations. We can’t just look for who is culpable, we should be able to determine how do we go forward and do better than what we did before.”
Prisoners Olatungi Denbow and Michael Findley remained at large yesterday and are deemed armed and dangerous.
The Prison and Police Services are calling on anyone with information to come forward.