The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie has promised to prosecute to the full extent of the law any officer found guilty of abusing Cuban detainees.

With an investigation underway into allegations of mistreatment at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, Mr Christie reiterated that the Bahamas government takes seriously the claims.

He said: “When they come in, we are spending significant resources to ensure that they are treated in a very hospitable way.

“Even though they are in the detention centre there is a level of comfort that ought to exist we most certainly as a government subscribe to it.

“We do not encourage or lay a position for people who are officers of the detention centre to treat people poorly.

“That is not the intention of the government. When we have allegations, we investigate those allegations. We are in the process now of investigating those allegations and clearly there will be a finding on it.

“If in fact a few of our officers have caused people (harm) they have to pay the price for their misdeeds.”

The allegations, which were fielded over the past few weeks, have caused a wave of backlash not only in the Bahamas but from politicians in the United States.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the US representative for Florida’s 27th congressional district, has chastised officials in the Bahamas for the decision to send the group back to their home country knowing that Cuba maintains poor human rights practices.

In another statement, she said that it was pathetic that the Bahamas felt beholden to the Castro regime.

She was among other officials including Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican favourite to run in 2016 US presidential election; Bill Nelson, Mario Diaz-Balart and Albio Sires to criticise the government.

They wrote a letter to Prime Minister Perry Christie dated August 16, 2013 to express concern over the treatment of Cubans detained in the Bahamas.

The letter said: “The description of their treatment is deplorable, but we recognise your government’s efforts in accepting responsibility and for committing to a full investigation into what occurred.

“It is our understanding that the government of Panama offered asylum to the Cuban refuges on humanitarian grounds.

“Given the fact that the Cuban regime maintains one of the world’s worst records on human rights, we are disappointed by your decision to repatriate the freedom-seeking Cuban refugees back to their brutal oppressors.”