Former LifeSport coordinator Rajaee Ali claims that moments before the deadly Port-of-Spain prison break in 2015, he tried to warn prison authorities about the incident with the hope of stopping it. Ali was an inmate at the Port-of-Spain prison at the time of the incident.
Ali claimed that he told the Port-of-Spain prison supervisor, acting Superintendent of Prisons Wilbert Lovell that he knew something “dangerous and foolish” was being planned.
However, 15 minutes after his warning, Ali claimed prisoners Allan ‘Scanny’ Martin, Hassan Atwell, and Christopher ‘Monster’ Selby, shot their way out of the Port-of-Spain prison.
Ali’s claims are made in a statement he submitted on August 19, 2015, to acting Assistant Commissioner of Prison Operations Dennis Pulchan who was appointed to the investigate the deadly prison break.
In 2007 Ali himself had been involved in an escape from the Golden Grove prison in Arouca, when he and two others reportedly used hacksaw blades to cut through the bars of their cells. Ali claimed he tried to warn the prison authorities of the 2015 escape.
On July 24, 2015, Martin, Atwell, and Selby broke out of the Port-of-Spain prison. Police officer Sherman Maynard was killed during the incident while prison officer Leon Rouse was shot and wounded.
Martin was killed during a shoot-out with law enforcement, and Atwell was murdered after hiding out in Port-of-Spain. Selby eventually surrendered to officers at the Barataria Police Station.
Lovell, and Prison Officer IIs Lancelot Duntin and Mervyn Pierre are currently on suspension for their alleged roles in the prison break.
A disciplinary tribunal has been appointed by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to probe the conduct of the three officers suspended as a result of the deadly prison break in Port-of-Spain.
Statements by Ali and other prison officers on duty at the time of the incident have been submitted as part of the evidence in the ongoing tribunal. The Sunday Guardian has obtained copies of these statements.
Ali a remand inmate at time of jail break
At the time of the prison break Ali was a remand inmate at the Port-of-Spain prison in the “F1 Division” in solitary confinement.
He was in prison charged with conspiring to murder radio DJ Kevaughn “Lurbz” Savory on November 27, 2014.
According to his statement, Ali claimed that on July 24, 2015 around 12.08 pm, “based on certain information” he had he requested to see the Superintendent at the Port-of-Spain prison. Ali’s request was made through Prison Officer I Barclay Toussaint at the F1 division.
“I told him I need to see someone in charge ASAP (as soon as possible).
He made a call to the chief and said the chief said when he is making rounds, he will check me,” Ali said in his statement. “The chief” Toussaint called was Acting Prison Supervisor Francis Fournillier.
Fournillier was doing a bail document for a prisoner at the time that Toussaint called him. Ali claimed that after “deliberating” for five minutes, he called Toussaint back and said the information he had “was really important”.
Toussaint left and returned with Fournillier. According to Fournillier’s statement, Ali told him “Boss, I am not an informer but something will happen by the visit room with Scanny and Hassan. Ali said, “I told (Fournillier) that something dangerous is about to take place and I need to see someone in charge to stop it.” Ali was taken to Lovell’s office.
“I told (Lovell) what is about to happen has something to do with the visits and if there was a list with Hassan or Scanny or other Muslims on the list he should stop it or bring them out separate,” Ali said.
Lovell then made a telephone call to Duntin, Ali said. Duntin was said to be in charge of visits that day.
Ali claimed Lovell asked Duntin which Muslims had visits scheduled.
Ali claimed he did not hear Duntin’s response but heard Lovell repeat the names Martin and Atwell. Lovell told Duntin to “split them up and don’t bring them out together,” Ali claimed.
“When he hang up I told him based on things I heard and conversations with Hassan and my little brother Ishmael Ali I believed that they were planning something dangerous and foolish,” he claimed.
Lovell asked him if he had any more information, Ali claimed.
Ali said he was “not sure” exactly what was going to take place but he knew it was going to be related to the prison visits of that day.
New padlocks received and replaced
Ali claimed that he spoke with Lovell for “about five minutes” before Duntin came to take him for his planned visit.
When Ali went to the visit area he saw “Scanny standing there as if his visit had already finished”.
“I didn’t see Hassan so I assumed he stayed inside,” Ali said. Ali’s brother Ishmael refused his visit that day, Prisons Officer I Jerard Dayal said in his statement.
Ali said he “went straight to the barrister room” where he had a visit with his wife.
“After about ten minutes into the visit I started to hear gunshots, and an officer came into the room and said look Hassan and Scanny escaping,” Ali said. Fournillier said while in the process of doing a handing over to acting supervisor Samuel Ramudit, he heard loud explosions coming from the prison’s main gate.
“I looked and saw smoke coming through the inner gate. I did not see any inmate in the courtyard apart from Ali who was still seated in the barrister room,” Fournillier said.
“I heard some more loud explosions and thought that people were shooting their way into the prison,” he said. According to Prisons Service Driver George Herbert statement, he saw Scanny with a firearm in his hand while Atwell pulled a pistol from his visit bag.
Ramudit grabbed his firearm and ran to the gate, Fournillier said. Acting Prison Officer II Owen Diamond escorted Ali’s wife to the visit area where “all civilians were being housed after the incident”.
Ali claimed that after sitting in the room for “about five minutes an officer came and instructed them to put me in my cell”. When Ali was escorted back to his cell, he turned to Toussaint and claimed, “I try to warn them but they don’t want to listen”.
Fournillier said he saw “spent shells within the inner and outer gates and within the gate lodge.
Immediately the entire prison was locked down and I issued firearms to officers to work by the gate.
“All firearms and ammunition was accounted for and all keys, except the padlock keys for the inner and outer gates. New padlocks were received and replaced those for which the keys were taken.”
Days after the prison break on July 27, Ali was charged with the ten others for the May 2014 killing of former senior counsel Dana Seetahal.
