Paul Bhagwandas

Paul Bhagwandas (30 November 1950 – 9 July 1996) was a Suriname battalion commander. He was one of the sergeants who participated in a military coup in Suriname on 25 February 1980 (during the period of the military command of Suriname between 1980 and 1987). Bhagwandas was the third man in the military dictatorship after Dési Bouterse and Roy Horb and was known as "the executioner of Fort Zeelandia".

Life Like Dési Bouterse, Bhagwandas was educated in the Netherlands where he rose to sergeant and was trained at the Royal Military School in Weert. He then went to work in the Dutch military. After the independence of Suriname in 1975, he returned with a number of other Surinamese soldiers to work for the new Surinamese Armed Forces (Dutch: Surinaamse Krijgsmacht) (SKM).

In 1993, Voetbal International published an article about the Surinamese football coach. Henri Does of the Surinamese organization SAWO wrote the following:

Translation:

Declaration and death Henri Behr, brother of murdered journalist Bram Behr, visited Bhagwandas in his house shortly before he died in 1996, and Bhagwandas admitted to having been involved in the murder of his brother. According to Behr, Bhagwandas stated that Bouterse himself was present, and that he had murdered Surendre Rambocus and Cyrill Daal. Behr secretly recorded part of the conversation, and turned the tape over to the (now deceased) chairman of the Surinamese human rights organization OGV (Organisatie voor Gerechtigheid en Vrede - Organization for Justice and Peace). The tape has since been lost.

Bhagwandas died of cancer in 1996.