00:00Rajai Ali, one of the high-risk inmates awaiting trial for the murder of State Prosecutor Dana Seetal,
00:06has sought to clear the air on the meeting that took place between himself and former Senior Superintendent of Police Roger Alexander and ACP Richard Smith
00:14when they visited him back in January of this year at the Maximum Security Prison, MSP.
00:20Ali said the purpose of the meeting was misconstrued by others.
00:24My body proud situation and talk to them about the situation in jail.
00:30How men are being charged for phones and they don't have proper facilities in place so they're meant to communicate with their family.
00:38I talk about the gun hunting in prison.
00:42More or less, I was giving them my advice from my point of view from being on the streets.
00:47And the mistakes were I did think that the police service was making and approaching and dealing with crime.
00:54And I was asking them to, one of the main things that it was there for us, asking them to come and say,
01:00see, visit the other men in building duty, which was like me soon, Robert Paul, me, um, to hear our men, to hear our men at the same time.
01:13In a virtual recording meeting with one of his lawyers today, with the audio obtained by TV6,
01:18and verified as his voice by his wife, Stacey Ali, who spoke to us briefly by phone,
01:23Rajali Ali said that Alexander, during the meeting, agreed that prison was supposed to be a place of reform and not punishment.
01:30And I was telling them, you know, we care if we can't expect people to reform without, you know, without family, without religion.
01:46And these things, you're deprived of these things.
01:49If a man see my child twice for the year, when he come out of prison after 10 years,
01:56he ain't no family to go back to, and they're one of the first steps to reform.
01:59Ali said that they were being deprived of their fundamental rights while being kept at Tetran Barracks,
02:05and have not been afforded any family visits.
02:08The right to even read their religious books, a claim also verified by his wife, Stacey Ali,
02:13who said they have not been able to see him since he was taken there.
02:16We're asking Mr. O'Neill, the inspector of prisons, to come and visit.
02:22If he is at prison, he should come and visit and see if they said,
02:25it's 88 days now.
02:28It's our father's, you know, going to speak to the children.
02:31The children are talking to me.
02:33They don't know what we know.
02:34We are trying to go into school.
02:36We don't know what my frame did.
02:38It's our sons, you know, my parents, who are old, who are sick.
02:41We don't know what my parents, we never talk to my wives in 80, is it 88, or 89 days since.
02:53You know, we can get enough visits from my family.
02:55And we don't even ask them for much.
02:57We say, okay, we're in Tetran Barracks, there's our detention, there's our SRE,
03:01so we have 41, so let me see my family, 41 at least.
03:05Ali said they were being stereotyped, and there were also threats to their lives.
03:09Mark Bessant, TV6 News.
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