A violent attack took place on Sunday at midday in a prison in Guadeloupe. A guard at the Baie-Mahault penitentiary center was “scalded by an inmate” and had to be “emergency operated on”.
An investigation was opened for “intentional wounding with a weapon by destination, on a person responsible for a public service mission, in a penitentiary establishment,” said Alexandra Onfray, deputy public prosecutor in Pointe-à-Pitre.
The CGT does not want to “let this happen”
“His entire left forearm is completely burned, he had to be operated on (…) we are not going to let this go to waste,” Eric Pétilaire, CGT prison delegate, declared at the beginning of the afternoon, denouncing “ a very, very serious attack.” The injured man was operated on urgently in the afternoon, he further clarified, which was confirmed by the prosecution.
Police custody will take place “tomorrow (this Monday) first thing in the morning and we will have an emergency requisition at the UMJ to have a precise assessment of the after-effects upon leaving the unit, because the qualification and the level of sanction depend on it », Specified Alexandra Onfray. “It will be a question of determining the ITT and possibly a permanent disability or not,” she added.
According to the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Guadeloupe (SDIS), the firefighters were called “at 12:18 p.m.” and the supervisor presented “a serious burn to the left upper limb and face”, a part of the body more lightly affected, according to Eric Petilaire. “This is the third guard scalded in ten years and it is the second time that it has been done by an inmate from Guyana,” indicated the unionist according to whom the suspect “was determined to attack the staff” because “he “required the intervention of a security team” to control him.
The man would have heated the liquid in “a rice cooker because we refused the plates”, according to Eric Pétilaire. He further added that “inmates systematically attack guards in order to be transferred.”
The problem of prison overpopulation
The origin of the suspect is however not confirmed by the prosecution. Alexandra Onfray only specified that the inmate “has a violent profile” and has “already been sentenced to prison by the Basse-Terre criminal court in 2023, for acts of attempted murder criminalized as violence”. “We are going to request his transfer,” declared Eric Pétilaire.
The Baie-Mahault prison, built for around 450 inmates, faces prison overcrowding that has been denounced for several years.