Gail Alexan­der

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj will be re­leased to­day from prison in Suri­name af­ter courts in that coun­try found the Suri­namese po­lice had no ba­sis to keep him.

How­ev­er, he will re­main in Suri­name un­til a tri­al is sched­uled in the bank fraud al­le­ga­tions against for­mer Suri­namese Post Sav­ings Bank CEO Gin­mar­do Kro­mosoe­to.

This is ex­pect­ed in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

This was con­firmed by Ram­samooj’s wife Camille Pagee yes­ter­day.

Re­ports by Suri­name’s De Ware Tidj on­line ser­vice yes­ter­day stat­ed Ram­samooj will be re­leased by or­der of the Court of Jus­tice.

Ram­samooj was de­tained on Oc­to­ber 8.

He’d been told by Suri­namese Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vices (SPSB) that they want­ed a state­ment or ev­i­dence to sup­port an in­quiry in­to op­er­a­tions at the SPSB and he’d agreed to as­sist. A probe was be­ing done on SPSB since 2019.

When the de­ten­tion con­tin­ued with­out charge, Ram­samooj a di­a­bet­ic, last month threat­ened to go on a hunger strike. Ram­samooj has de­nied claims and de­clared he wasn’t guilty of any crim­i­nal of­fence.

Yes­ter­day Pagee said his de­ten­tion by po­lice on sus­pi­cions of col­lab­o­rat­ing with the CEO of a state bank in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, was chal­lenged by his lawyer un­der that coun­try’s “Ar­ti­cle 61” of the crim­i­nal code.

Po­lice in Suri­name have wide pow­ers to de­tain with­out ev­i­dence, but Ar­ti­cle 61 re­quires them, af­ter a cer­tain time with­out pro­duc­ing charges, to prove to the courts that sus­pi­cions have been sub­stan­ti­at­ed.

“The Court (yes­ter­day) found they were not,” Pagee added.

Ram­samooj’s lawyer Mau­reen Nibte yes­ter­day told the Suri­namese courts that the PPS han­dling the mat­ter has failed to turn the sus­pi­cion that Ram­samooj has com­mit­ted any crim­i­nal of­fence in­to se­ri­ous ob­jec­tions, which could jus­ti­fy con­tin­u­ing his cus­tody.

Nibte al­so point­ed to Ram­samooj’s frag­ile health, which would have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sharply dur­ing the lengthy pe­ri­od he was kept in cus­tody.

Pagee added, “He is di­a­bet­ic and has a heart con­di­tion, both of which are sub­ject to de­te­ri­o­ra­tion un­der stress.”

Ram­samooj’s wife who is in Trinidad said she is await­ing more de­tails on the next steps in the process.

Pagee added, “My con­cern from the first day their po­lice held Derek in Oc­to­ber, was for his health. Derek was in Suri­name work­ing on projects in keep­ing with his pro­fes­sion, which he has prac­tised all over the re­gion for over 25 years - da­ta col­lec­tion, analy­sis, strate­gic ad­vice. So the al­le­ga­tions were far-fetched. The fam­i­ly and I are over­joyed at his re­lease. He will need time to re­cov­er.”

She will have her first op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak to her hus­band to­day af­ter over 70 days.