In the face of a damning memo, Superintendent of Her Majesty's Prison Dr Elliston Rahming acknowledged that the three prisoners who were recaptured after last month's breakout were beaten.
A fourth escapee was reportedly killed during the incident. During a press briefing at the prison yesterday, The Guardian spotted a memo on a bulletin board outside the conference room.
The memo, signed by Deputy Prison Superintendent Charles E Rolle, instructed prison officers to refrain from beating the recaptured prisoners. The first few lines of the memo read, "It has been brought to the attention of prison administration that ever since the inmates who escaped were returned to the institution, a number of prison officers are taking the law into their own hands by indiscriminately beating these inmates" The letter issued a warning to offending officers, saying, "Let me remind you that committing a murder will not bring Corporal Dion Bowles back to us."
However, Dr Rahming was quick to point out that incidents of prisoner abuse were the exception and not the rule. "If it happens, it's because somebody is exercising undue privilege and you'd find that in any institution, where from time to time, somebody operates to the excess of his authority," explained Dr Rahming.
"But that's not the rule at Her Majesty's Prison. I guarantee you that. That's precisely why the letter was written because someone engaged in excess." He added that inmates at the prison are treated as human beings, in' line with The United Nations Standards for Minimum Treatment of Offenders.
"That is not to say that we have fully arrived at all of its (U. N.) tenets but clearly, we are moving towards them," he said. "We issued a Standing Order on Use of Force, which states that an officer can only use force when he is in fear or some other person is in fear, or to achieve compliance by an inmate. But he cannot indiscriminately use force. If that happened in the past, that's a thing of the past."
However, The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) does not believe that prisoner abuse in The Bahamas is a thing of the past. GBHRA in a letter to the press two weeks ago, made reference to the January 17 prison break, where Corporal Bowles, 38, was stabbed to death as he tried to stop four inmates from escaping. In the scuffle, one prisoner, Neil Brown, was shot dead and two others were immediately recaptured. The fourth prisoner escaped but was recaptured two weeks later.
GBHRA said it had been receiving credible reports that inmates were being beaten at the penal institution following the breakout. As a result, GBHRA asked Dr Rahming to permit it to visit the prison to conduct an investigation. Dr Rahming has yet to respond to GBHRA, saying yesterday, that the decision was up to The Ministry of National Security.
Three weeks ago, photographs were sent to The Guardian showing naked bloody inmates lying on a tiled floor in a holding area, believed to be situated within the prison's premises.
Said Dr Rahming: "The matter of the photos is before the ļ¾ police and i think that they may be soon rendering a report on them. But I know, that our internal affairs division conducted an investiga- tion as well, and I believe that they are very near to rendering a report.
Dr Rahming also said he did not know where the body of Neil Brown was, adding that, the body's whereabouts was not a prison matter, but a matter for Mr Brown's family and the police.
By MINDELL SMALL Guardian Senior Reporter
