By Peter Stevenson
POLITICAL parties and MPs called for an urgent overhaul of the central prisons on Saturday after reports emerged that an inmate had been gang-raped earlier this week.
The alleged attack followed three suicides in less than six months at the outdated facility which dates back to British colonial times.
News broke late on Friday that a 22-year-old Romanian convict claimed he had been raped by four other inmates on Thursday.
And tensions rose again later on Saturday after a 19-year-old inmate attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with his bed sheets. The Greek national was rushed to Nicosia General Hospital at around 3pm. His life was not at risk but he was being held for precautionary reasons, police said.
“The current situation is completely unacceptable from every point of view, and I call on authorities to take immediate action so we do not have any more episodes of this nature,” said Soteris Sampson, head of the House legal affairs committee and MP for the ruling DISY party.
He said problems at the central prisons were getting out of hand and warned they could spiral viciously out of control if the authorities did not step in.
Sampson said that the committee was prepared to approve any legislative proposals submitted which would improve the running of the prisons.
“It is our top priority to improve the correctional system and we are ready to approve legislation that would see that happen,” the DISY MP said.
Prison governor Giorgos Tryfonides told the Sunday Mail yesterday that Nicosia CID was investigating the rape and that he was expecting a detailed report from state pathologist Sophocles Sophocleous who had examined the alleged victim.
“Initial examinations indicated that the convict bore signs of rape, but we will not know for sure until the state pathologist completes a detailed report,” he said.
The four suspected rapists have been put in isolation until an investigation has been concluded.
Tryfonides added that Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou has ordered a disciplinary investigation into the matter but that no prison guards had been suspended.
“On Monday the prison committee will meet to see whether any guards acted inappropriately and need to be suspended,” he said.
Opposition party AKEL expressed its concern on Saturday with head of the party’s legal office, Aristos Damianou using the latest incident to launch a personal attack on the justice minister.
“Unfortunately the rape of a convict has now been added to the three tragic suicides which have taken place at the central prisons,” he said.
Damianou added that in the light of the suicides, rape and other unfortunate events during Nicolaou’s ten month tenure, he wondered when the justice minister would take action.
“We recall that in the recent past, the minister insisted that his predecessor resign to show political culpability following an incident where a convict managed to escape,” he said.
The Green Party said that the situation at the central prisons was more alarming and critical than ever.
“We feel that the central prisons are a pot which is ready to boil over, and there could be casualties. There would appear to be a violation of human rights but other than a number of inconclusive investigations nothing else is happening,” the Greens said.
EDEK called on the justice minister to abandon what they described as “his passive methods” of dealing with the problems at the prisons.
“He needs to act and act now,” EDEK said.
Nicolaou responded to the criticism saying that there would be a full investigation.
“I do not want to get into details but the decisions will show the government’s decisiveness on the matter,” he said.
Nicolaou added that the current situation at the prisons is worrying but that action would be taken.
“We are not blind, we know that repairs need to be made to a prison system that is decades behind,” he said.
The minister said that instructions had been given to the central prisons’ governor on how to deal with cases of rape and suicide. He added that the current government was trying to deal with the problems rather than sweep them under the rug like previous administrations had in the past.
In December Nicolaou ordered a disciplinary and criminal investigation into the suicide of a 27-year-old Kurdish convict from Syria who hanged himself with his shoe-laces even though he had been put on death watch.
Last August, another convict also hanged himself in his cell.
The 26-year-old man, who had been diagnosed with mental illness, had been jailed for 12 years for killing his sister by hitting her over the head more than 50 times with a laptop in the family’s Nicosia home in January 2012.
Nicolaou ordered an investigation into the suicide a few days later but no result has been announced by the justice ministry.
On July 18, a 42-year-old man who was in prison awaiting trial on charges of arson, fixed for September, also committed suicide in his cell.
