President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons says she is unaware of a request filed by attorney Irvin Kanhai, seeking clemency for four people convicted in the highly publicised so-called December 8th trial.
The four men, along with the late Suriname president Desi Bouters, had been sentenced to prison over the execution of 15 political opponents in 1982.
President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons speaking Monday night during the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) commemoration meeting marking what would have been Bouterse’s 80th birthday.
Bouterse was found guilty of planning and ordering the extrajudicial execution of the 15 political prisoners and was sentenced to 20 years in jail. However, he went into hiding and died in December 2024.
Kanhai said he has made the request on behalf of Ernst Gefferie, Stephanus Dendoe, and Benny Brondenstein, who are serving their sentences in Santo Boma, and Iwan Dijksteel, who is still at large. They were each sentenced to 15 years in prison in December 2023.
‘Some time ago, I filed a request for clemency for the four people who, in my opinion, were wrongly convicted and are our comrades,’ Kanhai said Monday night during the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) commemoration meeting marking what would have been Bouterse’s 80th birthday.
‘We have not heard anything yet, but we remain determined,’ he told the ceremony, telling Bouterse’s widow, Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring and her family ‘for me, I wish to close this chapter and end the grieving process together with you’.
Regarding Dijksteel, Kanhai said ‘someone may avoid conviction, but once a conviction is obtained, a pardon can be requested.’ maintaining that given the way the trial proceeded, the four convicts are certainly eligible for a pardon.
But asked by reporters about the request, President Greelings-Simons said she has not yet seen the request.
‘Should I make a decision about this now? I haven’t seen it,’ she said.
In his address, Kanhai also addressed the relationship between Suriname and the Netherlands, caling for openness about information from the 1980s.
‘We also want a good relationship with the Netherlands. But when two friends have a disagreement, and one friend can’t say ‘I’m sorry, because I hurt you,’ that friendship can never be repaired. We hope the Netherlands will do that.’
NNP vice-chair, Ramon Abraham, and a former close colleague of Bouterse, recalled that the party has always considered the December 8 trial a political process.
He said that the 2025 elections were intended to ‘liberate the comrades’ and reiterated that the NDP maintains that position.