Prisons Commissioner Carlos Corraspe says an investigation has found there is no truth to the claim that Hannah Mathura’s mother, Alana Mathura, was raped while incarcerated.
“I directed the Superintendent in charge of the Women’s Prison to conduct an investigation,” he said.
Earlier this month, through their former attorney Steffon Boodooram, the Mathura family claimed that their mother, Alana, 63, was raped while in custody for her daughter Hannah’s murder at the Women’s Prison, Golden Grove, Arouca.
On October 16, Alana and her husband Andrew Mathura were arrested and charged with the murder of Hannah, who was 18 at the time of her death.
Her remains were found buried in the backyard of the family’s Valsayn home in March this year after police received a tip-off from one of her siblings. Hannah was last seen alive in June 2017.
Yesterday, the Prison’s Commissioner told Guardian Media that before Alana’s admission to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex on October 29, her children visited her at the prison and he said “no such claims” were made then.
Corraspe added that while Alana was at the hospital, her children visited her once, but she was not in a state to speak.
“There was a prison officer who was in attendance and a prison welfare officer who was also present and they have corroborated the fact that when they met with her at the hospital there was no communication between the children and the mother, because by then she was at a level of incoherence,” he said.
The family’s former attorney claimed that Alana confided in one of her daughters while at the hospital about her ordeal in prison.
An autopsy report showed that the matriarch died from bilateral pulmonary thrombosis and deep vein thrombosis.
Corraspe said he has not received any official correspondence from the family’s attorney to support their claims.
“The body was always at Mt Hope and it would have been open to the family to conduct or have the particular assessment of the body done to make a determination in terms of that. I do not know if that was done,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tahira Davis Gibson-Sobers, the attorney for Hannah’s father, Andrew, said there has been no funeral service for Hannah or her mother. Gibson-Sobers said there would not be a funeral service for any of them and the bodies would be privately stored.
Andrew remains in custody.
