Senior Reporter
jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt
Defence Minister Wayne Sturges says an inmate at the Maximum Security Prison (MSP) was using a 65-inch television in his cell to communicate with people on the outside. The inmate was reportedly using popular online video games which allow players to communicate with each other while playing the games.
In an interview with Guardian Media at his Temple Court, Port-of-Spain office yesterday, Sturge also dispelled suggestions that the television in the inmate’s cell he referred to during a presentation in Freeport on Wednesday night, was in the communal area of the prison.
Guardian Media was informed by reliable sources that the television which Sturge referred to was discovered in the prisoner’s cell in February.
Yesterday, Sturge said the inmate was gaining Internet access to use the TV from the prison. He added that the jammers and grabbers in place at the facility were not used in the past, as the powers that be sought to gather intelligence. He said he hopes a different approach will now be taken.
“My issue is, and of course the prison officers complain if you turn on the jammers, then they are also affected. But if you don’t turn on the jammers, one thing is you’ll be gaining intelligence. But the flip side of that is that you are allowing things to take place, lives will be lost. So, you have to make a decision. What you want more, whether you want evidence or intel at the cost of human life?”
Asked if there were other inmates with personal televisions in their cells, Sturge said that was a matter best answered by acting Prisons Commissioner Carlos Corrapse and his Cabinet colleague Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander.
During a budget consultation in Freeport, on Wednesday night, Sturge said a 65-inch TV was found inside a prisoner’s cell in Building 13 at the MSP in Arouca, where the high-risk prisoners are housed.
“You would know that there are things that are allowed into prisons illegally. No one is surprised about marijuana and cocaine and other drugs and so on, and other types of contraband. But I don’t know if you are aware that recently, a couple guns were found in prison. That’s a serious security risk,” Sturge said.
“But to tell you how far we have descended and which is indicative of how fearful prison officers are of some of the elements, there’s a certain prisoner, I won’t call his name, a certain prisoner who had in his cell in the infamous Building 13, which is reserved for the worst of the worst, he had in his cell a very large flat screen TV.”
On July 18, Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro announced that intelligence gathered revealed prisoners who had formed themselves into a crime syndicate, were plotting with others to target top public officials. He explained that this is what caused the Government to declare a State of Emergency.
Contacted yesterday, acting Prison Commissioner Corraspe said he did not want to comment on the veracity of what Sturge said.
“There are two televisions in that division (Building 13). There are five televisions at the Maximum Security Prison. There are televisions across all the nation’s prisons at the exercise yard for the inmates.”
He added: “I don’t want to presume what was the thinking of the commissioner then, in terms of granting or approving that but no, it was never directly in any inmate’s cell.”
Also contacted yesterday, former prison commissioners Gerard Wilson and Deopersad Ramoutar said televisions in prisons were nothing new, adding, however, that they are usually not in cells but in communal areas.
Wilson said: “All I know is that over about 10 years now, that has been happening. I understand that television in the prison is not a new thing. In fact, all the prisons have television. Women’s Prison, Carrera, Remand. We had a television in the Remand Yard in the exercise yard.”
He claimed there was never any one inmate with a television during his tenure.
