In Suriname, the police are on the trail of a former president. An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday against Desi Bouterse, sentenced on appeal on December 14 to twenty years in prison for the assassination of 15 opponents in 1982.
Aged 78, Desi Bouterse, who appeared free at his appeal trial, did not attend the reading of his sentence. He was supposed to report to the prison on December 12 but did not respond to the summons.
The police only release an old photo
“Anyone who can provide information on the whereabouts of this convict is asked to contact the Capital Crimes Department,” police said, publishing an old, poor quality photo of Desire Delano Bouterse despite the fact that there are countless photos of the former president. Police also issued an arrest warrant for Bouterse’s former bodyguard, co-convict Iwan Dijksteel.
The prosecution, for its part, released a press release outlining other details of the case. He claims to have agreed to a “written request” from Me Irvin Kanhai, lawyer for the former president, for him to go not to the prison but to a medical-hotel complex about 5 kilometers from his home . “Unfortunately”, neither Desi Bouterse nor Iwan Dijksteel “showed up” to the hospital and prison respectively.
“They were then searched at their residence address in the morning, but were not found,” indicates the prosecution’s text, stressing that “at the international level, this search will be carried out by Interpol”. In 1999, Interpol had already issued an arrest warrant against Desi Bouterse after he was sentenced to eleven years in prison in the Netherlands for cocaine trafficking. His status as a leader, however, protected him from extradition.
On Friday, his wife, Ingrid Bouterse, indicated that he refused to be incarcerated. “He benefited from an amnesty and that is why we want to respond politically,” she said, referring to an amnesty law passed by parliament in 2012 when Desi Bouterse was president.
The threatening allusions of “Bouta”
A few days before his conviction, thousands of his supporters gathered at his party headquarters shouting “Free Bouta”, his nickname. In a speech the same day, Desi Bouterse called for calm: “Let’s not sow chaos. We will hold out until the 2025 elections.” However, he stressed: “things can get out of hand”, an allusion to possible problems that his incarceration could cause.
Author of two coups d’état, the former strongman of the army, who led a junta in 1982, was elected president of Suriname in 2010 and remained until 2020. During the trial, he admitted having heard gunshots on the day of the opponents’ execution, but denied having given the order.