Santokhi asks for everyone's cooperation so that Bouterse is arrested and imprisoned

Suriname's President Chan Santokhi has called on everyone to cooperate in the search for fugitive former army chief Dessie Bouterse, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for multiple murders in December last year.

“The Attorney General has called on the international community and I call on everyone from here to cooperate in his investigation and provide all necessary information to transfer to the Attorney General and not engage in cheap politics in this regard,” Santokhi said on Sunday. On the ABC program Welingelichte Kringen.

The head of state essentially shrugs off criticism that he should be blamed for the fact that Bouterse made himself untraceable, because there were supposedly prior agreements between him and Bouterse. He said that the concept of political trials had always been used and that the necessary authorities, including the judiciary and the Public Prosecution Service of Suriname, had done their job properly.

Admittedly, he did not expect the former army chief to flee due to the pattern in which Bouterse was usually found in the country during all his previous convictions.

There were many moments of judgment and he did not escape. He stayed in the country. No one should play the role of an ostrich in this country. Everyone has responsibility. The Public Prosecutor's investigation always comes when the Public Prosecution Office is unable to track down someone with its working arms. An appeal is then made to the international and local community to “help me track down this person.”

Let everyone sit down, bear their responsibility, and begin implementing the orders of the Attorney General. “So that he can be arrested and locked up,” Santokhi stressed.