Death in custody

THE FINDINGS of a second autopsy performed on his body indicate that Noel Stanley was not only strangled to death but that he was also tortured and beaten. The alarming fact is that Stanley died while in police custody on Sunday and there can be no other conclusion than that the 28-year-old man was another hapless victim of police brutality. Given the notorious reluctance of Police officers to thoroughly investigate allegations against members of the service, our fear is that this killing will again be covered up and the persons who committed this atrocity on Stanley will not be brought to justice. It may well end as inconclusively as the case of Abdul Kareem, the young Muslimeen member, who was stabbed while under arrest by the Police and subsequently bled to death on a St James pavement.

A coroner’s inquest into the murder of Kareem ordered an investigation by the Police to find his killer, but after that inquiry nothing was ever heard of the matter. The policemen who were taking Kareem down to the St James Station must have known who inflicted the fatal stab wound, but they kept their silence, obviously determined to protect the murderer among them. The question is, will the investigation into Stanley’s killing ordered by the Commissioner end up in the same black hole? We will have to wait and see.

According to the evidence provided by the second autopsy, Stanley was not only choked to death but blood stains around the walls of his abdomen indicated that he was beaten in the stomach, and the badly swollen condition of his testicles showed that they had been squeezed. These were some of  the findings of a second post mortem which lawyers representing the victim’s family had requested since they were apparently not satisfied with the inconclusive report of the first. The wounds he received are tell-tale signs that, after he was held by the Police, Stanley died an agonising and brutal death. It seems he was treated to a heavy dose of “body music” and underwent the well-known practice of squeezing the testicles of suspects  before he was strangled.

Will the Police officers who kept him at the Belmont Police Station and members of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad who interrogated him now claim total innocence,  that they really have no idea how he received those injuries and how he met his death? Stanley was held by the Police on Sunday after he was allegedly caught tossing a bag of compressed marijuana over the wall of the prison on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain. According to police reports, he was taken to the Belmont Police Station and later questioned by officers of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad. While under interrogation, we are told, he complained of feeling unwell and was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he died.

From the time of his arrest to the moment of his death, Stanley was in police custody and, one would assume, under their “protection.” We understand the public pressure now being placed on Police officers to deal with the country’s alarming crime problem. And we do not expect that persons caught committing crimes will be treated with kid gloves. But the kind of brutality inflicted on an alleged marijuana peddler is an intolerable reversal of their role. To condone it or cover it up will only create another kind of fear. We want our policemen to deal with violence, not dish it out.