Williams back at Camp Street jail, security capabilities adequate – Prison Director

By Leroy Smith

Director of Prisons (ag), Gladwin Samuels is assuring the nation that the “security capabilities are adequate” to keep re-captured death row prisoner, Royden Williams inside the Camp Street Prison.

During an interview with News Room Monday night at the prisons, Samuels said that the necessary arrangements have been put in place to accommodate Williams, who is on death row for the Bartica Massacre.

Royden Williams aka ‘Mark Royden Durant’ and ‘Smallie’ was captured unarmed at approximately 20:00hrs on Monday while in a minibus at Weldaad along the West Coast Berbice public road.

He was escorted under heaving security from Berbice to Georgetown by anticrime and SWAT Unit personnel and placed into what is left of the Camp Street jail. According to the Prison Director, an establishment order would be issued at the Camp Street facility so that officers who will supervise Williams “will be clearly guided outside of the SOPs as it relates to a special system in place to ensure that Royden Williams remain in the facility.”

News Room understands that on Monday, police received intelligence relating to William’s movements and systems were put in place earlier in the day to intercept the fugitive.

Samuels said that even though Williams removed his trademark dreadlocks, the prison officers were still able to determine that they placed into the custody, the correct individual, in the person of Royden Williams.

“All of the other identification marks that we would have captured on his penal record we were able to confirm that it is indeed Royden Williams and he did not deny his identity either when I interviewed him,” Samuels told News Room.

Williams is expected to be charged with escaping from lawful custody as well as several other offenses including murdering a prison officer.

Williams escaped from the Camp Street Prison on July 09, 2017, and is believed to be the mastermind behind the prison riot. He was last spotted on August 31, 2017, in Linden. Williams was in the company of UreeVarswyck, another prison escapee, who was shot dead during a Joint Services intelligence-led operation at Central Amelia’s Ward, Linden.