Senator John Bostwick arrives at court, with a suit jacket draped over his handcuffs. Photo: Tim Clarke/Tribune Staff
By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
MOMENTS after he was granted bail after being arraigned in Magistrates Court, Free National Movement (FNM) Senator John Bostwick vowed that he “will fight” the charge of ammunition possession brought against him yesterday.
“I am not a criminal, I remain that born free-nationalist and I will fight this,” Mr Bostwick, who was flanked by his family, told reporters after he posted his bail.
Mr Bostwick was arraigned before Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt for the alleged possession of 10 live rounds of .22 ammunition which were found on Saturday, May 17.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was released on $9,000 bail.
Less than an hour before uttering these words, the 42-year-old, dressed in a three-piece business suit with a jacket folded over his arm, was flanked by four policemen who escorted him into the Nassau and South Streets complex to face the criminal charge.
As he waited nearly 30 minutes to be arraigned, the senator was seen reading his Bible as the magistrate dealt with other matters.
His mother, Janet Bostwick, a former minister of foreign affairs and attorney general, FNM Chairman Darron Cash and other supporters were present in court.
It is claimed that Mr Bostwick, not being the holder of a firearms certificate granting permission, was in possession of 10 live rounds of .22 ammunition on Saturday, May 17.
According to reports, the accused was in the domestic section of the Grand Bahama International Airport when, during a routine check, airport security allegedly discovered a quantity of ammunition in his luggage.
An X-ray machine security officer noticed a suspicious object in the bag allegedly carried by the 42-year-old and alerted the police at the airport.
The officers checked the bag and allegedly found 10 rounds of .22 ammunition.
The senator was taken into custody and flown to Nassau where he was held at the Central Detective Unit.
During the arraignment, police prosecutor Inspector Clifford Daxon had no objection to bail.
However, before the question of bail was dealt with, the chief magistrate said,”It is the practice of this court that where the matter is alleged to have taken place, the trial is heard there.”
The senator’s lawyer, and father, John Bostwick I, said that while he understood that the majority of witnesses were in Grand Bahama, he wished to have the matter tried in Nassau, considering that six of them were police officers who would have no trouble getting to the capital to testify.
“What we must think about is the public purse,” Ms Ferguson-Pratt replied.
However, Inspector Daxon said he had no objection to the matter being heard in Nassau.
Ms Ferguson-Pratt said she would not be presiding over the case, but would transfer it to court No. 8 and set a fixture hearing before that court for May 27.
“As there has been no objection to bail by the prosecutor, bail therefore is granted in the sum of $9,000 with one suretor and the defendant is to report to the Central Police Station once per week, each Monday on or before 6pm,” the chief magistrate said.
Instead of being escorted to a holding cell while his family posted his bail, Mr Bostwick was allowed to wait in the court No 9 courtroom.
Comments
TalRussell 10 years, 5 months ago
My Dear Comrades have you noticed how shamefully silent The Tribune’s “blog-it-up” like crazy reds has remained? But not when any individual, be they some distant 10th once claimed be a PLP one time removed, too far away from PM Christie to even bother mentioning?.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
I'm no red,. I will support anyone who displays character, integrity, honesty , is intelligent and is in government for the right motives. Who cares what colour tshirts they decide to throw on. I'm definitely not a supporter of the current lack lustre, grimey, seedy crew. In any event I'm quite sure I said yesterday "he should resign".
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Tal, this case may get nasty before it is over......................... dont gloat yet
B_I_D___ 10 years, 5 months ago
While I am a pro-gun advocate, the law of the land has handguns outlawed at the moment except for very specific purposes and under strict legal constraints. With that being said, if he was in fact in possession of the ammunition, let the chips fall where they may, just because he is a senator, politician and linked to a well known family, if you broke the law, you are just like everyone else, no special treatment. If that means he gets found guilty and spends his due time in Fox Hill so be it. With that being said though, I smell a rat. I'm guessing there is much more to this story than meets the eye. I don't think the Senator, who is more educated than most, would be so daft to pack and carry live ammunition through an airport security checkpoint. Private charter you may get away with it, but flying commercially, through the airport screeners, you can't be that dumb. Time will tell. I wish him luck, he's going to need it.
TalRussell 10 years, 5 months ago
Comrade not gloating as John B has not been found guilty of anything but why not demonstrate the same respect toward a PLP who has contacts with the policeman's? Instead all hell is blogged-talked-up on these same hereto Tribune pages. I wish the young Senator well, who I had sincerely hoped would be given much better treatment by the reds under Minnis, than Hubert gave to Comrade Henry B. But it is the red shirts who play their politics over denying bail, not this Comrade.
bahamian242 10 years, 5 months ago
He can't be charged w/having live rounds! For it to be live rounds the clip has to be inserted into the firearm! Where is the firearm???
proudloudandfnm 10 years, 5 months ago
Bostwick is going to win this one hands down. Obviously this was a set up. Dude flew to Freeport from Nassau and no bullets were found by Nassau's xray. Why would anyone fly to Freeport to buy 10 rounds of ammo? Obviously a set up.. Question is who did it?
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
So if this is some undercover, sinister, smear campaign against FNM powerbrokers............... who is behind it??????? Thats troubling
slim242 10 years, 5 months ago
Mr. Bowstick you are in my prayers, in my heart you are being framed, but let due justice take its course. This too shall pass and I know you love to read your Bible and pray, now is the time to be reading and praying even more. Be strong my friend.
Cobalt 10 years, 5 months ago
Being framed??? Y'all people don't know this man a? John Bostwick and all of his friends carry guns. What Bahamas y'all living in??? After years of getting away with petty crimes (thanks to mommy and daddy), he just happened to get careless and was caught. Drugs and ammunition pass one checkpoint only to be discovered at the next all the time. This does not suggest anything sinister has occurred. He got careless and was caught. Plain and simple.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
I don't know if he's being framed. Likely they were his. Remember the accountability we want the current government to be subject to? The examples we want them to be? It goes both ways. Since this episode I've heard some unflattering things about this man, if true, he shouldn't be there in the first place. The FNM and Dr Minnis know him better than I do, they should deal accordingly if they are serious about accountability, anti corruption and all the other elusive principles
TalRussell 10 years, 5 months ago
Comrades walk away while you still have your damn Freedom. Live ammunition is when it's ready to be fired, not loaded in a gun's barrel. Since I know not what supposedly took place at the airport between a x-ray machine and 10 live rounds of .22 ammunition, I shall leave that to the courts to decide. But let this be a lesson for all Bahamalanders and residents, that it's a political trick by the red shirts to get you to give up your rights to bail. This may be your last chance and best chance to walk away from the reds "No Bail" games, before it happens to you or someone in your family. If, John B's own red shirts had their political way, would he not have been confined to Her Majesty's Fox Hill Prison for months and even longer while awaiting trial, regardless of his innocence or guilt? Some them red shirts will even Hang ya ass too. Maybe this might serve as a serious warning to sober some you reds backwards thinking up, to be honest to the harsh realities of a red "No Bail" government.
B_I_D___ 10 years, 5 months ago
I'm with Tal on the live ammo thing...you can have a box of live ammunition, the term refers to the fact that it has not been physically fired or 'spent'. Any ammunition that is complete, with it's charge still in tact is live, whether it is in a magazine loaded in the gun, loose in someones pocket, or in a bag or case being carried around...it's all live ammo. If you find a random complete bullet lying on the ground, and you pick it up to look at it, you are now in possession of live ammunition and can and SHOULD be charged.
Cobalt 10 years, 5 months ago
Smt
realfreethinker 10 years, 5 months ago
Tal you keep thinking these things are about red shirts,you have a lot to learn. slowly the rights of Bahamians are being eroded and you chalk it up to sour grapes. Mrs Turner brought up the issue of the NIA and you all say it's political,now we have the situation of the NSA spying. You all better open your eyes.
PastorTroy 10 years, 5 months ago
Absolutely Agree! Red shirts??? REALLY??? Bahamas Freedom and Democracy is being torn to pieces!
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
PLPs are traditionally deaf, blind and dumb..................... een nuttin change since '67
TalRussell 10 years, 5 months ago
Conmrade, if only what you're saying was all there is to an already broken justice system, that was made more broken under the Hubert regime. Unfortunately, far too many sit up at Her Majesty's Fox Hill Prison, who are not high-profiled Bahamalandes, showing up in court to face the mighty Judge, with the power of a highly talented legal representation team at their sides. Many who might be equally as innocent as Comrade John B, are financially incapable of posting their $9000 Bail. That my dear Comrade friend is my argument, nothing more. In the eyes of many, Comrade Rodney was treated like trash by this same broken justice system, not charged for being in possession of bullet,s but simply posting photographs of someone on a morgue's gurney. is that the justice you speak of?
Observer 10 years, 5 months ago
What's this? open bahamas court in the park? Where is the witness? Let him/her present, and all others keep silent in the court.
B_I_D___ 10 years, 5 months ago
Agreed...if it is a clear cut case of the ammunition being his, he deserves everything he gets. I personally do not know and have not been in Mr. Bostwick's company, so as Cobalt says, he may just be a gun totting law breaking citizen, in which case, throw the book at him. I just hope that the truth reigns supreme on this one, not some sort of cover-up or politcal 'favour'.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
We don't know him but the FNM hierarchy does. They should deal with this accordingly if they are serious about good governance. Should he have been appointed to his position in the first place? sometimes people don't get stopped when they're supposed to, no one refuses them... then they meet a bigger, unpleasant brick wall.
242orgetslu 10 years, 5 months ago
PLEASE READ AND PASS ON! This is the link where the full story is: http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MA…
Across the inky-blue Gulf Stream from Florida, near the sheer edge of the Great Bahama Bank, a new island is emerging from the sea. Although it bears the appealing name Ocean Cay, this new island is not, and never will be, a palm-fringed paradise of the sort the Bahamian government promotes in travel ads. No brace of love doves would ever choose Ocean Cay for a honeymoon; no beauty in a brief bikini would waste her sweetness on such desert air. Of all the 3,000 islands and islets and cays in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay is the least lovely. It is a flat, roughly rectangular island which, when completed, will be 200 acres and will resemble a barren swatch of the Sahara. Ocean Cay does not need allure. It is being dredged up from the seabed by the Dillingham Corporation of Hawaii for an explicit purpose that will surely repel more tourists than it will attract. In simplest terms, Ocean Cay is a big sandpile on which the Dillingham Corporation will pile more sand that it will subsequently sell on the U.S. mainland. The sand that Dillingham is dredging is a specific form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, which is used primarily in the manufacture of cement and as a soil neutralizer. For the past 5,000 years or so, with the flood of the tide, waters from the deep have moved over the Bahamian shallows, usually warming them in the process so that some of the calcium carbonate in solution precipitated out. As a consequence, today along edges of the Great Bahama Bank there are broad drifts, long bars and curving barchans of pure aragonite. Limestone, the prime source of calcium carbonate, must be quarried, crushed and recrushed, and in some instances refined before it can be utilized. By contrast, the aragonite of the Bahamian shallows is loose and shifty stuff, easily sucked up by a hydraulic dredge from a depth of one or two fathoms. The largest granules in the Bahamian drifts are little more than a millimeter in diameter. Because of its fineness and purity, the Bahamian aragonite can be used, agriculturally or industrially, without much fuss and bother. It is a unique endowment. There are similar aragonite drifts scattered here and there in the warm shallows of the world, but nowhere as abundantly as in the Bahamas. In exchange for royalties, the Dillingham Corporation has exclusive rights in four Bahamian areas totaling 8,235 square miles. In these areas there are about four billion cubic yards—roughly 7.5 billion long tons—of aragonite. At rock-bottom price the whole deposit is worth more than $15 billion. An experienced dredging company like Dillingham should be able to suck up 10 million tons a year, which will net the Bahamian government an annual royalty of about $600,000.
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