By Shauna Jemmott

POLITICAL activist Mark Benschop has aborted his appearance before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Georgetown Prison riots, accusing the panel on Friday of stripping him of his constitutional right to a public hearing.Benschop, once an inmate of the Georgetown Prisons, told the Guyana Chronicle he was scheduled to testify at the CoI appointed by President David Granger to look into the circumstances surrounding the deadly prison riot, but was never told the hearing would be ‘in camera.’

Chairman of the CoI, Justice James Patterson, announced on Wednesday that the media and members of the public would be excluded from the audience during the proceedings on Friday, but are free to hear the enquiry on Monday, which is the final day.

According to Benschop, debarring the media and members of the public from attending the proceedings of the CoI on Friday, especially since the CoI is a public proceeding, has caused his constitutional right to be “stripped naked by the Commission.”

He opined that the Commission may have believed that his testimony would throw the proverbial monkey wrench in the works.

“Why should I, in a public inquiry, be subject to ‘in camera’ testimony? Why should members of the public be asked to leave? Why should the media be asked to leave? The public has every right to hear what I or any other person has to say. I feel very violated by that (decision),” Benschop declared.

Benschop said if he wanted to talk to the Commission privately about his experience as a prisoner at the Georgetown Prison and the 2006 prison riot, he would have “invited them to my home.”

His testimony would have surrounded mainly his experience during his five years of incarceration as a political prisoner.

“I wanted an opportunity to talk about the prison life, and I wanted the press to be there.”
He pointed out that many others, including Director of Prisons Carl Graham and Officer-in-Charge of the Georgetown Prisons, Kevin Pilgrim, as well as suspended Deputy Director of Prisons, Gladwin Samuels, were offered an opportunity to a fair public testimony.

“I find it very suspicious [that] when it became time for me to testify, they say we’re not gonna have the media there, we’re not gonna have the public there, we’re gonna do this in camera. Obviously they want to cover up something, and I’m led to this conclusion because of the fact that they have refused to let my testimony be made public,” Benschop argued.

The political activist told the Guyana Chronicle he believes the make-up of the Commission is unfair to the prison population, since all the commissioners have been related to the prisons in some way or the other. He said he suspects that the Commission, comprising Justice James Patterson (retired), Human Rights Activist Merle Mendonca and former Director of Prisons Dale Erskine, “has an agenda to protect the system.”

He pointed out that Mendonca herself was a member of the Prison Visiting Committee (PVC), Erskine was Director of Prisons, and retired Justice Patterson would have sentenced several prisoners to jail throughout his career as Judge.

“It’s a farce! A waste of tax payers’ money! A waste of people’s time! And (it’s) very devious….Who is he [Erskine] going to protect? Obviously the officers; because [almost] all of those officers came up under him while he was Director of Prisons,” Benschop stated.

Benschop was, in July 2002, imprisoned on an allegation of treason after he was accused of being part of a group attempting to overthrow the government of former president Bharrat Jagdeo. His trial ended with a hung jury in August 2004, but the Government refused to throw out the charges and he was incarcerated at the Camp Street penitentiary pending retrial.
On August 20, 2007, Jagdeo gave Benschop an unconditional pardon and released him from jail.