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The Joint Services announced on Thursday they were in “confrontation” with a man who was shot dead. After initially withholding information, the police later revealed the person shot was Royden “Smallie” Williams, who escaped from the Mazaruni Prisons on May 19, 2023.
The rapid unfolding of events and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government’s historical record on crime fighting, honesty on crime, and extrajudicial killings has ignited national conversations on the handling of Williams’ escape and his demise.
Village Voice News reached out to senior counsel Roysdale Forde, who is also shadow Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, for his comments. Forde told this publication, as an attorney-at-law he condemns all sorts of crimes, and extrajudicial killing should not be condoned, nor accepted as a replacement for lawful crime fighting interventions and bringing suspects and or convicts to trial. “When extrajudicial killings become standard operating procedure, it speaks to the failure of State institutions to perform in keeping with civilized norms.”
It would also not be “far-fetched,” he said, “to see such events rooted in corrupt government and State sponsored or associated activities. Guyana has travelled this path before under the PPP regime.”
According to Forde, the incarceration of Williams, was a welcome event to many who believed justice was served and the penalty appropriate to match the crimes he was found guilty of in a court of law. “From all appearances individual or individual (s) internal State officials and external interests sought to aid his escape that culminated in his death and forever silence.” Forde, holding no brief for Williams, declared his greater concern is decadence which such policing actions usher in and the undermining of real policing, law and order.
There are many questions that must be answered, Forde said. Questions, such as how such a high risk and dangerous convict, with such restrictions that Williams had, was able to escape our most secure prison; who provided logistical and other support to aid his escape and sustenance during the period; and what was the motive behind the escape.
However, he asserted, this issue is more than Williams and the story of an escaped convict. “Guyanese must address their minds to the PPP’s crime fighting methods which make us unsafe.”
He said stopping Williams by killing him is another indication of the need for a more equipped, technically competent and skilled force that would allow for other less deadly and more efficient strategies employed by our armed forces. “Once again as another wanted man ‘bites the dust,’ and we are reminded that it is the government’s responsibility to activate the Coroner’s Act. This would provide for an investigation and unearthing of facts surrounding this escape and killing.”
Forde said should the government fail to conduct such an investigation, as required by law, it will again demonstrate their discrimination in the application of the law and crime fighting. According to the senior counsel, the inaction of the government to hold the police accountable for extrajudicial killings, and implement police reform on crime fighting, suggests that they are complicit with the quality of service some members of the Force are engaged in. “Wanton killing of alleged criminals and convicted criminals should be of concern to the entire society.”
“There is no effort to capture criminals and alleged criminals to get additional information on crime, which is important to crime fighting,” the attorney contended.
He warned, the perception where government and the state police seem comfortable operating from the position that dead men tell no tales, is dangerous and can seed retaliatory responses that harden criminals and dry up sources of information. Guyana must contain and reduce criminal activities, Forde argued. “In a civilised society, run by a civilised and democratic government this should be done in a court of law where everyone is entitled to a fair trial.”
Further, the senior counsel said, we cannot continue to de-sensitise society by escalation of these killings. “Already we see the nature of vigilante justice taking on varied proportions of mob violence and brutality and creating a fervour of excitement, even among our youth and school age population.”
Forde calls on the government and the head of Guyana’s security forces to set a better example for Guyana’s children. Whilst he expressed understanding of the frustrations and limitations facing the Police he countered, “families who suffer at the hands of these criminals are grieving, but we must ask, is justice really served or is this a sentence being meted out for someone else? There should be no ambiguity, no doubt, no possibility of the latter, for it makes fools of all of us who are law abiding and seeking justice for wrongs committed against us and our loved ones.”
