The Guyana Prison Service’s (GPS) Public Relations Officer (PRO) today said that domestic abuse convict Daniel Seeram had never been handed over to the prison authorities.
GPS PRO Rajiv Bisnauth was responding to a question from Kiskadee Watch (KW).
The disclosure will intensify questions around why the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has defied the order of Magistrate Abigail Gibbs that Seeram be remanded to prison pending sentencing on November 2nd for the assault of his former wife.
For days the media has been attempting to determine Seeram’s location after a failed bid by his lawyers at the High Court to overturn the magistrate’s remand offer.
Today, Kiskadee Watch raised the matter again with both the GPF and the GPS. When this publication contacted Director of Prisons Nicklon Elliot he referred KW to his PRO who then made the disclosure that Seeram had never been handed over the prison authorities.
When questioned by Kiskadee Watch, Police Commissioner Clifton Hicken said, “Let me find out and call you back,” before abruptly ending the call.
Subsequent calls to his phone went unanswered.
The uncertainty surrounding Seeram’s whereabouts comes after the High Court dismissed his application for judicial review challenging Magistrate Gibbs’ decision to remand him following his conviction for assault causing actual bodily harm.
Justice Joy Persaud-Singh ruled that the application had not met the criteria for judicial review, finding no indication that the magistrate had acted unlawfully, irrationally or outside her jurisdiction. The judge consequently upheld the magistrate’s decision to refuse bail.
Kiskadee Watch was reliably informed that Seeram has been kept away from the prisons by the police force in what would be contempt of the magistrate’s order.
Seeram had been appointed National Border Patrol Director by President Irfaan Ali. Upon his conviction there was an expectation that he would be removed from this position. President Ali has not commented on the matter.
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