Coalition wants COI Lusignan prison unrest/ deaths

A fire at the Lusignan prison in July this year 

DEAD: Earl Graham.

The Opposition is still seeking a commission of inquiry into the unrest and subsequent deaths of two prisoners at the Lusignan prisons on September 19. That request has now formed part of one of two motions submitted by APNU AFC to the Clerk of the National Assembly on Monday morning.

“We need justice, we need answers,” Janice Williams told reporters outside Parliament building. Her brother was Earl Graham. The 52-year-old was serving a three-month sentence for charges of malicious wounding, assault and resisting arrest. The family maintains that the official recording of his death is questionable.

“The question is why would you fire live rounds in a crowd? and we have evidence to show that he was shot by his bed in the closing area,” Williams said. The motion was submitted in the name of shadow Home Affairs Minister and former magistrate Geeta Chandon-Edmond.

She is adamant that a commission is needed to “investigate the unrest at the Lusignan prison”. Flanked by the relatives of Earl Graham, Chandon-Edmond echoed their sentiments, that there are loopholes in the story being told by prison authorities,

“The video and the photographic evidence contradict what is recorded on the registration of death, so we are calling for the inquiry into the events that led to the unrest,” she maintained.

Prison authorities have said that in an effort to prevent a break at the prison, shots were fired.

The prisoners had been protesting against the overcrowding of the institution and their possible exposure to COVID-19. This protest erupted during a visit by two government ministers.