On Friday, law enforcement officials in Guyana launched a hunt for convicted murderer and death row inmate Mark Royden Durant, who escaped from the Mazaruni Prison in Region 7, which is located on the left bank of the Mazaruni River.
Durant, also known as Royden Williams and “Smallie,” escaped with the “assistance of external persons,” according to the Guyana Prison Service (GPS).
On September 1, 2022, Williams was convicted of the murder of Guyana Defence Force (GDF) member Ivor William, 24, in Buxton on January 23, 2008.
Prior to that, he was found guilty and condemned to death on eight charges of murder in the 2008 Bartica massacre in 2017. He, on the other hand, has challenged both his sentence and conviction.
According to media reports, Williams had already escaped from prison during a disturbance at the Georgetown Prison in July 2017.
Williams was acquitted of the 2007 murder of Kumar ‘Mango Man’ Singh by a 12-member jury in 2019.
He was acquitted of two counts of murder in 2022 after a jury judged him not guilty of killing two men during an armed robbery at a pub on Agriculture Road in Triumph, East Coast Demerara, in 2007.