{"id":39416,"date":"2013-09-18T22:38:25","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T02:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=39416"},"modified":"2013-09-18T22:38:25","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T02:38:25","slug":"haitian-detainee-sues-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/09\/haitian-detainee-sues-government","title":{"rendered":"Haitian Detainee Sues Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A Haitian man who spent six years in prison without being tried on a sex charge has sued the government over his continued detention by immigration officials.<\/p>\n

Jasmyr Etienne was denied bail after his arraignment on a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse in January 2007 because he had no ties to the country.<\/p>\n

The Crown discontinued the matter against Etienne on February 20, 2013 with the presentation of a nolle prosequi.<\/p>\n

At this point, Etienne had already been in prison for the equivalent of the maximum sentence. Etienne was remanded to the Carmichael Road Detention Centre.<\/p>\n

However, his lawyer Dorsey McPhee said that Etienne remains in custody without any word on when he will be repatriated.<\/p>\n

McPhee said the government has yet to pay Etienne an award of $5,000 for the breach of constitutional right to trial within a reasonable period.<\/p>\n

The Department of Immigration and the attorney general are named as defendants in the action.<\/p>\n

According to a statement of claim, the defendants have not complied with the judge\u2019s award, which was to draw interest at 10 percent if not paid by June 3, 2013.<\/p>\n

Etienne said he has suffered loss and damage by his continued unlawful detention.<\/p>\n

He is seeking general, aggravated and exemplary damages for false imprisonment and legal costs.<\/p>\n

McPhee told The Nassau Guardian that he hopes that swift justice occurs in the matter.<\/p>\n

McPhee said that there could be no reasonable defense to allegations contained in the statement of claim and the government\u2019s failure to pay the sum awarded by the court.<\/p>\n

By: Artesia Davis <\/span><\/em>
\nGuardian Senior Reporter<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Haitian man who spent six years in prison without being tried on a sex charge has sued the government over his continued detention by immigration officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}