JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Three more men have been trans­ferred from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca to the De­fence Force’s head­quar­ters at Ch­aguara­mas.

This, as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to un­rav­el the de­tails of how a group of pris­on­ers were able to form them­selves in­to an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate with­in the prison sys­tem.

Prison of­fi­cials yes­ter­day con­firmed that Hamil­ton Small, Ryan Stephens and Nef­ta Fe­lix were moved on Sun­day.

Small, of Cara­po, es­caped from po­lice cus­tody while on his way to the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court in 2018. He was re­cap­tured days lat­er.

Stephens, along with An­der­son “Weasel” Mapp and Dar­ryl Charles Bis­soon, is charged with the mur­der of Col­in De­landro in 2005.

Mapp and Bis­soon were found guilty and re­ceived the death penal­ty at the end of the tri­al, while Stephens was or­dered a re­tri­al. Bis­soon, who is await­ing a re­tri­al for an­oth­er mur­der, was al­so pre­vi­ous­ly trans­ferred from the MSP to Ch­aguara­mas.

Fe­lix, 39, is charged with the 2012 mur­der of Shel­don Dun­can. He is joint­ly charged with Keon “Bug­gy” An­drews, Michael “Spice” Bak­er, and broth­ers Dex­ter and Dar­win Williams.

In jus­ti­fy­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the State of Emer­gency on Ju­ly 18, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said there was a plot to mur­der top state of­fi­cials, which was hatched in prison by in­mates who were part of an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate. He said the in­mates al­so had help from prison of­fi­cers.

Ten in­mates were trans­ferred from Build­ing 13 at the MSP to Staubles Bay and Teteron Bar­racks on the SoE’s first day. Some of the in­mates lat­er un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought ju­di­cial in­ter­ven­tion to have them re­turned to MSP, which Gue­var­ro said made no sense, as “jail is jail.”

The men claimed they were be­ing made to wear blind­folds while be­ing trans­ferred from their cells to meet with their lawyers.

How­ev­er, at­tor­ney Criston Williams’ le­gal at­tempt to get the De­fence Force to stop man­dat­ing at­tor­neys to use eye cov­er­ings when meet­ing their clients failed.