SINCE the incident-free capture of Guyana’s `Most Wanted Man’ by the police on Monday night at Weldaad Public Road, West Coast Berbice (WCB), the question on everyone’s mind is who will get the $10M reward which was being offered by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for information which would lead to the arrest of the escapees.

Crime Chief, Paul Williams, told the Guyana Chronicle that Mark Royden Williams called “Smallie” was indeed captured by the police but he was unsure as to whom in terms of the Joint Services or civilians would benefit from the reward offered.

However, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday said it was a confidential matter which would not be disclosed for security reasons.

Williams, following shrewd intelligence gathering, was arrested around 20:00hrs on Monday night on the Weldaad Public Road, West Coast Berbice. At the time, he was in a passenger minibus, had shaved off his dreadlocks and was clad in trunks and a tee-shirt. He was also unarmed, did not resist arrest, the police reported.

According to the Director of Prisons (ag), Gladwin Samuels, the re-captured prisoner was handed over to prison authorities on Monday night following his arrest.

Williams, who was deemed as Guyana’s `most wanted fugitive’, had escaped from lawful custody from the Camp Street Prison on July 9, last, when fire which was allegedly set by prisoners engulfed most of the wooden buildings which had then housed more than 1,000 condemned and remand prisoners.

Williams, who is on death row and also has other matters in the High Court burned and shot his way out of Camp Street Prison and has been on the run for three months.

On August 31, he eluded a Joint Services intelligence-led operation at Amelia’s Ward, Linden but another escapee, ex-cop Uree Varswyck a/k Malcolm Gordon, who was with him at the time, was shot and killed.

The Joint Services were then acting on reports they had received that Williams and Gordon seen in the Central Amelia’s Ward area.
The death-row inmate, is one of several prisoners who had escaped from the Georgetown Prisons and who is wanted for murder and escaping from lawful custody,and has other pending matters in the Georgetown High Court.

The condemned prisoner was jointly charged with Michael Caesar for the murders of Fazil Hakim called “Boyie” and Rajesh Singh called “Rabbit” at a liquor bar at Lot 82, Agriculture Road, Triumph, East Coast Demerara in December 2007.
He was also convicted for his involvement in the February 17, 2008 Bartica Massacre in which the lives of Lance Corporal Zaheer Zakir and Constables Shane Fredericks and Ron Osborne.
Edwin Gilkes, Dexter Adrian, Irving Ferreira, Deonarine Singh, Ronald Gomes, Ashraf Khan, Abdool Yasseen, Errol Thomas, and Baldeo Sing, were ruthlessly snuffed out.
At the trial he was convicted of eight counts of murder and four counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to death by Justice Roxane George, S.C now Chief Justice (ag). Additionally, as it relates to the Bartica Massacre, Williams has a second indictment for terrorism and three counts for break and enter and larceny.

Following his conviction in Bartica Massacre, he subsequently filed a notice of appeal and appeared before the Court of Appeal, but the decision is pending. Williams, whose last known address was listed as Friendship, Buxton, East Coast Demerara (ECD), was also tried for the Lusignan Massacre and was acquitted by a 12-member jury in the Georgetown High Court.
Williams before his re-capture was wanted by the police for murder and escaping from lawful at the Georgetown Prison, Camp Street.
Meanwhile, two other escapees, Cobena Stephens called “OJ” and Paul Goriah, both of whom bolted from the Lusignan Prison, remain on the lam.