08/02/2010 - J. Rufus Paul
Source: FrontPage Africa
Monrovia –
Owing to the lack of adequate food supply, a plate of rice has become a commodity traded for homosexuality at the Monrovia Prison Cells.
Prisoners in Liberia suffer malnutrition, overcrowding, grossly inadequate medical care, and the risk of rape or torture. Some of them are detained for years in such conditions even before they are brought to trial. According to prison compound source, food provided by the government for prisoners has been redirected into personal use by Correction and Rehabilitation officials at the Ministry of Justice thereby rendering inmates supplies inadequate. Our sources noted that owing to the lack of adequate food supply, a plate of rice has become a commodity traded for homosexuality at the Monrovia Prison Cells.
Bobby Brown, 29, who has been serving a prison sentence at the Monrovia Prison Compound on Center Street for committing an armed robbery offense has died as a result of poor health condition. He was pronounced dead on July 29, 2010 by medical doctors at the John F. Kennedy hospital where the Ministry of Justice took him for treatment after months of severe sickness in his prison cell.
Another inmate, Lucky Ben told FrontPageAfrica on his sick bed at JFK “I got sick and nearly died in prison that is the reason I’m here undergoing treatment. The doctor said I need to take an operation on my heart, but such operation cannot be performed here only out of the Country. I got sick right in the prison compound owing to the poor conditions in the cells. No good treatment for inmates. Human beings cannot live the way the prisoners are living. You need to go and see for yourself”.
Ben is one inmate at the Monrovia Central Prison accused of theft of property but has not appeared in court. According to him, he has been in jail for over five months without seeing his accuser. He is currently suffering from a heart disease he apparently developed in prison.
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has failed to provide basic nutrition, sanitation, and decent housing facility for prisoners, and of the criminal justice system to ensure speedy trials and appeals. Poor conditions and minimal medical care for inmates has contributed to the death of at least six prisoners from the Monrovia Prison Compound in recent times while many others have fallen sick.
Liberian prisoners are starved, packed into cells unfit for human habitation, and face beatings at the hands of certain guards or fellow inmates. Children, pregnant women, pre-trial detainees, and convicted criminals are condemned to brutal treatment including not eating on time at prison centers across the Country.
The Ellen Johnson Sirleaf government and its partners have failed to establish improvements in prison conditions and medical care, and the criminal justice system has failed to respect the rights of prisoners.
Prisoners frequently spend years in prison awaiting resolution of their case. Hundreds of prisoners are not serving time following a conviction but are in prison on remand, awaiting trial or other legal action. They frequently have no access to a lawyer or to bail and may wait months even for an initial appearance before a judge.
Apart from Correction or Rehabilitation centers where inmates are kept, many police station cells in Monrovia are so overcrowded or tight that some prisoners are forced to sleep seated or in shifts. Police officers have been accused on many occasions for routinely beating prisoners, or force them naked into small, dark cells where they are kept far above the statutory period before sending them to court.
However, according to Brown’s mother, Mary Jones, her son’s condition had already gotten horrible in his prison cell before he was handcuffed and brought to JFK amidst counts of bureaucracies from the Ministry of Justice. “When I saw Bobby, I knew he was already a dead man. I saw death in his face; he could not stand, eat nor talk”.
Aging madam Junes noted that “I suggested that I take my son for treatment and turn him over to the MOJ thereafter, but I was pushed around many times in vain. As I speak to you now, his body is deposited at the JFK morgue and MOJ has also refused to turn his corpse over to me for burial”.
