Suriname authorities hunt for fugitive ex-president amid prison no-show

By Ank Kuipers

PARAMARIBO (Reuters) -Surinamese authorities are searching for ex-President Desi Bouterse after he failed to turn himself in to start a prison sentence for involvement in the murder of 15 activists in 1982, the prosecutor general's office said on Friday.

A three-judge panel in December affirmed the convictions of Bouterse, 78, and four others in the execution of the government critics who included lawyers, journalists, union leaders, soldiers and university professors.

While Bouterse was ordered this week to report to jail, his wife, Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring, told journalists outside their home early on Friday, "He's not going to turn himself in."

Lawyer Irvin Kanhai, arriving at the prison in Paramaribo, Suriname's capital, with two of the other men convicted in the case, said he would talk with the former leader.

"I am going to talk to him now and then we will see what we are going to do," Kanhai said. "I don't know him (to do anything) other than to bow his head to law and justice."

Bouterse dominated politics in the former Dutch colony for decades and left office in 2020.

He has denied the charges but was sentenced to 20 years in prison. One of his co-defendants also failed to report to the prison.

"The public prosecutor's office has started the process of tracing those convicted in the December 8 criminal case who have not reported to the penal institution as stated in the order for execution of sentences," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Advocates, including Sunil Oemrawsingh, president of an association of relatives of victims in the so-called December murders, and international observers said it was not surprising that Bouterse did not show.

"The authorities have shown an admirable determination to uphold the rule of law and I expect that they won't hesitate to enforce the arrest warrant," lawyer Reed Brody, who monitored the case for nongovernmental organization the International Commission of Jurists, said via a messaging app.

Current President Chan Santokhi investigated the case as a police commissioner and later, as justice minister, pushed for it to move ahead.

The court ruled in 2019 that Bouterse had overseen an operation in which soldiers abducted 16 leading government critics, murdering all but one at a colonial fortress in Paramaribo.

One trade union leader survived and testified against Bouterse, who seized power in a 1980 coup against Suriname's first prime minister just five years after independence.

Bouterse has said that the murdered men were connected to an invasion plot involving the Netherlands and the United States.

A spokesperson for Bouterse's party on Friday said both countries were trying to interfere again.

(Reporting by Ank Kuipers in Paramaribo, additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in BogotaWriting by Oliver GriffinEditing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Nick Macfie and Matthe Lewis)