PARAMARIBO--Justice and Police Minister Edward Belfort is facing criticism over his reversal of a decision by the Chief of Police to fire recruits who lied on their application forms about their criminal past.

 

Tjin Liep Sjie recently fired seven recruits after corps management learned that they had lied during their application process. "They had denied ever having been in contact with justice. When management learned that these people had actually spent time in jail, their employment was immediately terminated," parliamentarian Asiskumar Gajadien (Nieuw Front/VHP) told journalists over the weekend.

 

Five of them appealed the decision at the Ministry, upon which Minister Belfort reversed their dismissals. Belfort noted that they had indeed been in jail but not sentenced. One of them actually spent six months in lock-up in the Netherlands, but was acquitted of involvement in drug-trafficking. He omitted this during his application procedure and made it onto the training course to become a police officer. Since being reinstated the five recruits have been stationed in the village of Moengo in District Marowijne.

 

Member of Parliament (MP) Gajadien said that like him, the police corps management is in total disagreement with the Minister's decision. He said it was remarkable that the Minister accepted the explanation that the recruits did not know that on their application they also had to mention any involvement with justice, even if it had happened abroad.

 

"The Minister is frustrating the strategies of the corps with his support of criminals; this act again shows that the minister is carrying out strategies that are stimulating crime, that are supported by the President," the Parliamentarian said. He said he wants a criminal investigation carried out into the Minister.

Belfort has since responded to Gajadien's accusations, doing them away as a political attack leading to the upcoming general elections of 2015. He said it was ill-mannered of the parliamentarian to take to the media with this matter, but that he would be willing to answer any more questions in the National Assembly. "Let him ask the questions there. That is his forum and I would give him all the explanations he requires from me in my function as Minister of Justice," Belfort said.

 

It is not the first time this year Belfort has faced criticism over policies he announced. After he announced in March that he was agreeing to conditional release for prison inmates who have served two-thirds of their terms and who are of good behaviour, opposition leader Chandrika Santokhi (VHP/Nieuw Front) asked "What is good behaviour? Who measures it? And most importantly: which criminal acts does it apply to?" He called it a "thoughtless policy."