Jamaican jailed for 9 years in Bahamas under non-existent laws released

NASSAU, Bahamas — A judge on Thursday ordered the immediate release of a Jamaican national who had been jailed there for the past nine years illegally under immigration laws that his lawyers said do not exist.

President of the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHA), Fred Smith, Q C had urged the Court to free Mathew Sewell and recognise that there is “no Guantánamo Bay” in The Bahamas, where individuals can be held in secret and outside the scope of the law.

Sewell was 18 years old when he first legally came to The Bahamas to visit his father, who lives here.

At the time he was preparing to join the Jamaican Defence Force.

Now, 27, he said he plans to renew that dream upon his return home.

Smith called on the Bahamas authorities to respect the fundamental rights of every individual, regardless of their nationality.

Smith said the Immigration Department cannot continue to act as “judge, jury and executioner” when it comes to people whom they have detained since the Court is the only entity that can decide if a person is guilty of any offence under the Immigration Act.

The human rights group said that Sewell was repeatedly detained in connection with a series of alleged and trumped up charges over the better part of the last decade. It said this included a trumped up murder and a house break-in which happened while he was already in prison.

The human rights group said that all the allegations against Sewell proved to be false and he was released from prison an innocent man about a year ago. However, shortly thereafter, he was detained by immigration.

Appearing before Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs, Smith successfully argued that the committal order under which his client was being held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre was defective, having been granted under a section of the Immigration Act that does not even exist.

He said the order also listed the period of detention as “unknown”.

source: jamaica observer