The Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice is re­fut­ing claims that a pris­on­er was beat­en to death at the Gold­en Grove Prison, de­scrib­ing them as “ma­li­cious and in­ac­cu­rate”.

In a state­ment on its so­cial me­dia pages, the Prison Ser­vice points to sev­er­al re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing via so­cial me­dia plat­forms about the al­leged dead­ly as­sault.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prison Ser­vice, the in­mate in ques­tion died af­ter be­ing ill for some time.

“The pris­on­er, Ker­ryn Jerome, who was housed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, was ail­ing for some time and was ad­mit­ted to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Cen­tre where he sub­se­quent­ly died on Sep­tem­ber 05, 2023,” the state­ment said, as the Prison Ser­vice ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Ker­ryn Jerome.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice … prays that they be grant­ed com­fort dur­ing this time of grief.”

Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons (Ag), De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar, has con­demned the so­cial me­dia re­ports.

“These types of un­con­firmed re­ports are ex­treme­ly dis­con­cert­ing, un­eth­i­cal and un­pro­fes­sion­al and are viewed as de­lib­er­ate at­tempts to tar­nish the op­er­a­tions of the Prison Ser­vice,” the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er stat­ed.

Com­mis­sion­er Ra­moutar lament­ed what he says is “the lack of con­sid­er­a­tion for fam­i­lies and friends of the de­ceased”.

He as­serts the Prison Ser­vice “re­mains trans­par­ent in its op­er­a­tions and con­tin­ues to ad­here to its man­date of restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of those un­der its care.”