A prisoner who was one month away from being freed died on Thursday after being severely beaten by another prisoner the day before.
According to police reports, 32-year-old Rishi Ramoutar was taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, on Wednesday night after he was beaten while at the Golden Grove Prison, Arouca.
Police said prisons officers were doing routine checks when they found Ramoutar, who was serving time for marijuana possession, bleeding from wounds to the body and face. Officials believe he was beaten with a mop stick.
Ramoutar was taken to the hospital, but died around 11.30 am the following day. An autopsy yesterday at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, revealed he died as a result of blunt force trauma.
In a telephone interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, the mother of the victim’s son, Tricia Lakhan, said Ramoutar, who lived at Cassie Street, El Dorado, Tunapuna, did not deserve such a horrible death as he was a jovial man.
Lakhan said she also believed that there was some sort of conspiracy to cover up the truth about her boyfriend’s death, noting they were not getting straight answers from the authorities about the circumstances surrounding his death. She also questioned how a mop stick could have been used to beat him and, given the extent of his injuries, she doubted that it was done by one man as the prisons officials had said.
“What they saying happen cannot be what happen at all. How prisoners would get their hands on a mop stick at that hour and then beat him without the guards hearing him screaming?” Lakhan asked.
Several calls to Prisons Commissioner Conrad Barrow went unanswered yesterday.