Human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, yesterday urged Bahamas officials to provide greater accountability for police abuses, following the death of two men in custody on the weekend.
The two — 33-year-old Jamie Smith and 20-year-old Aaron Rolle — died while detained at two different police stations in the capital, Nassau, last Friday and Saturday, respectively.
Amnesty, in a statement yesterday, said the circumstances of the men’s deaths and the reasons for their original detention were still unclear, although officials said the incidents would be investigated by the Coroner’s Court, a judicial body which suffers from serious backlogs due to lack of resources.
Said Amnesty: “Their deaths are the latest examples of alleged human rights abuses by police, including similar fatalities in police custody or alleged unlawful fatal shooting in recent years. In the vast majority of the cases, those responsible did not face justice.”
The rights group said that the continuous lack of justice for unlawful killings at the hands of the police showed that the authorities have not been doing enough to ensure that investigations are thorough, independent, impartial and timely, said Javier Zúñiga, special advisor at Amnesty International.
“Authorities in the Bahamas should seriously consider the establishment of an independent body to investigate police abuses and provide such an institution with sufficient resources. This would ensure not only greater efficiency in the investigations but would also help restore public confidence in the police force,” said the rights group.
Amnesty said it has documented a number of cases of human rights abuses by Bahamian police officers, including unlawful killings, ill-treatment and excessive use of force during arrests and detentions. At least six people, he said, were reported to have been killed by police in disputed circumstances in 2012 and at least one man died in police custody.
It added that the June 2012 conviction of a police officer for the death in custody of Desmond Key in 2007 was a rare instance of the police being held to account where impunity is the norm.
By Jamaica Observer.com