- Suriname authorities hunt for fugitive ex-president amid prison no-show
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) in Suriname Friday said it had launched an investigation to ascertain why former president Desi Bouterse and one other person, convicted of murder, failed to report to prison authorities to begin serving their lengthy jail terms.
Three of the five retired army officers reported to prison on Friday to begin serving their 15-year jail term after being implicated in the murders of 15 men on December 8, 1982.
Ernst Gefferie, 81, Benny Brondenstein, 68, and 68-year-old Stephanus Dendoe presented themselves with their lawyer at the Central Penitentiary in Santo Boma, but the whereabouts of Bouterse, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail and his ex-bodyguard, Iwan Dijksteel, handed a 15-year jail sentence are not known.
On December 20 last year, the Court of Justice imposed the sentences and 78-year-old Bouterse, who is the chairman of the main opposition National Democratic Party (NDP) had until Monday to request a pardon but did not do so.
Earlier on Friday, Bouterse’s wife, Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring announced that her husband would not register, saying she did not know where the location of the ex-army leader and former president. She told reporters he has not been home for several days and she has had no contact with him.
But, Ramon Abrahams, one of the NDC’s vice-chairmen, said that Bouterse is good where he is, adding “don’t worry too much about the chairman.”
Media reports said that the five men will be housed in the prison’s infirmary, noting that Brondenstein is on dialysis and suffers from throat cancer, while Dendoe struggles with mental issues and Gefferie also has serious health problems.
“I’d rather not give you an answer,” Gefferie told reporters when asked how he felt, and then shrugging off another question with the answer “do you want to be locked up?”
Gefferie is one of the 16 soldiers who staged a successful coup against the then democratically elected government of Prime Minister Henck Arron on February 25, 1980. The so-called ‘Group of 16’ led a dictatorial regime in Suriname between 1980 and 1987, which they called a revolution.
Gefferie, the eldest of the coup plotters in 1980, was accompanied by his lawyer Irvin Kanhai,who told reporters that his clients are still as revolutionary as they were on February 25, 1980, when they staged the coup.
Bouterse, who was not present when the Court of Justice had issued the ruling last month, had appealed against his conviction that had been handed down in August 2021, when the Court Martial of Suriname upheld the 2019 military court ruling of a 20-year-jail term following a trial that had been going on for several years.
In 2017, Bouterse along with 23 co-defendants appeared in the military court after the Court of Justice had earlier rejected a motion to stop the trial. The former military officers and civilians had been charged with the December 8, 1982, murders of the 15 men that included journalists, military officers, union leaders, lawyers, businessmen and university lecturers.
The prosecution had alleged that the men were arrested on the nights of December 7 and 8, and transferred to Fort Zeelandia, the then headquarters of the Surinamese National Army. They said the men were tortured and summarily executed.
The five convicts were summoned by bailiffs’ writ on Wednesday to report to the location where they will be locked up. Dendoe, Dijksteel, Brondenstein and Gefferie were ordered to report to the Central Penitentiary Institution in Santo Boma and the Penitentiary Institution Duisburglaan.
Bouterse was not at home and according to the Public Prosecution Service his roommate, on two occasions, refused to accept the summons.
In response, the Public Prosecution Service emphasized that once served, Bouterse will be locked up in a cell on the grounds of the Military Hospital in Paramaribo due to medical issues and because he is a former president.
