The Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice in Suri­name says it is in the process of is­su­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rest war­rant for for­mer pres­i­dent, De­si Bouterse, af­ter he failed for a sec­ond time to re­port to a lo­cal prison to be­gin serv­ing his 20-year jail sen­tence for mur­der.

The where­abouts of Bouterse, 78, re­mains a mys­tery af­ter he first failed to keep his sched­uled ap­point­ment last Fri­day to re­port to the prison in San­to Bo­ma just south of the cap­i­tal Para­mari­bo.

An­oth­er of the con­vict­ed men, Iwan Dijk­steel, 68, has al­so failed to re­port to prison.

“Fol­low­ing a writ­ten re­quest dat­ed Jan­u­ary 16, 2024, from Mr (Irvin) Kan­hai, a lawyer for the con­vict­ed Bouterse and Dijk­steel, the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice had a con­ver­sa­tion with him. The con­tent of the con­ver­sa­tion gave rea­son to agree to the re­quest that the con­vict­ed Bouterse could reg­is­ter at the Zorgho­tel for health rea­sons. The Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice set a dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion of Jan­u­ary 16, 2024, at 6.00 p.m.,” the au­thor­i­ties said.

Bouterse, who was not present when the Court of Jus­tice had is­sued the rul­ing last month, had ap­pealed against his con­vic­tion that had been hand­ed down in Au­gust 2021, when the Court Mar­tial of Suri­name up­held the 2019 mil­i­tary court rul­ing of a 20-year-jail term fol­low­ing a tri­al that had been go­ing on for sev­er­al years.

In 2017, Bouterse along with 23 co-de­fen­dants ap­peared in the mil­i­tary court af­ter the Court of Jus­tice had ear­li­er re­ject­ed a mo­tion to stop the tri­al. The for­mer mil­i­tary of­fi­cers and civil­ians had been charged with the De­cem­ber 8, 1982, mur­ders of the 15 men that in­clud­ed jour­nal­ists, mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, union lead­ers, lawyers, busi­ness­men and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers.

The pros­e­cu­tion had al­leged that the men were ar­rest­ed on the nights of De­cem­ber 7 and 8, and trans­ferred to Fort Zee­landia, the then head­quar­ters of the Suri­namese Na­tion­al Army. They said the men were tor­tured and sum­mar­i­ly ex­e­cut­ed.

Three of the co-con­vict­ed re­tired sol­diers, Ernst Gef­ferie, 81, Stephanus Den­doe 68 and Ben­ny Bron­den­stein 68, all re­port­ed to prison.

Po­lice in the Dutch-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try have since launched a search for both Bouterse and Dijk­steel, even as the main op­po­si­tion Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDC), which the for­mer pres­i­dent heads, main­tains that the tri­al was po­lit­i­cal and di­rect­ed by The Nether­lands.

This was al­so em­pha­sized last Fri­day at his res­i­dence by his wife In­grid Bouterse-Waldring and board mem­bers of his par­ty, where sup­port­ers had gath­ered to ex­press moral sup­port for their leader in case he went to prison.

His wife told sup­port­ers and the press that her hus­band was not at home, that she did not know his where­abouts and had not spo­ken to him for sev­er­al days.

She fur­ther said that Bouterse would not go to prison.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has now or­dered the ar­rest of both con­victs. In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, this will al­so be done by In­ter­pol,” ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice.

Kan­hai, lat­er said in a ra­dio in­ter­view that he is cur­rent­ly not com­mu­ni­cat­ing di­rect­ly with the for­mer pres­i­dent but through an in­ter­me­di­ary and that Bouterse, a for­mer com­man­der of the Suri­namese army, may there­fore not have re­ceived the mes­sage to reg­is­ter.

The crim­i­nal case against Bouterse and more than 20 sus­pects at the time be­gan in 2000 when rel­a­tives of the vic­tims filed a pe­ti­tion with the Court of Jus­tice stop­ping the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for pros­e­cu­tion.

The Court or­dered a pre­lim­i­nary ju­di­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion, af­ter which the crim­i­nal hear­ings by the Court Mar­tial be­gan in No­vem­ber 2007. From the be­gin­ning, lawyers, us­ing le­gal op­tions, have used de­lay­ing tac­tics to drag out the process.

Af­ter Bouterse came to pow­er in 2010 through de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions, par­lia­ment passed an amnesty law in 2012 to pro­vide him with im­puni­ty. How­ev­er, this law was re­ject­ed by the Court. An at­tempt by then pres­i­dent Bouterse to in­struct the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to stop the pros­e­cu­tion on the ba­sis of Ar­ti­cle 148 of the Con­sti­tu­tion was al­so an­nulled by the Court. Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent, the crim­i­nal case posed a threat to state se­cu­ri­ty.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court an­nulled the amnesty law in 2021, say­ing it was con­trary to the Con­sti­tu­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights treaties to which Suri­name is a par­ty.

PARA­MARI­BO, Suri­name, Jan 19, CMC – 

CMC/ic/ir/2024