The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE police investigation into 11 Jamaican women who were arrested on suspicion of solicitation and prostitution is continuing and “charges can still be filed”, according to Chief Superintendent Paul Rolle.

Chief Supt Rolle, who heads the Central Detective Unit, said the women were released from custody because “the legal time to hold them had expired”, but he said that does not mean the women were free of suspicion.

According to police reports, on December 5 officers from the Selective Enforcement Team went to a nightclub on East Street near East West Highway around 2am and arrested 11 women from Jamaica on suspicion of solicitation for prostitution and breach of the Immigration Act.

However, the women were released a day later without charges.

Last Tuesday, two local women’s rights groups urged Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade to launch a probe into the arrest and detainment of the Jamaican women amid allegations that because facilities were not provided the group had to urinate on the floor of the cell where they slept on cardboard boxes.

The groups believe the women were victims of “misconduct” by officers who allegedly discriminated against them based on their nationality. It is also alleged that the women were not allowed phone calls and were threatened while police held them for 36 hours.

However, Chief Supt Rolle said yesterday that as far as he knew, no complaint was filed by the women against police and he “doesn’t answer allegations in the press.”

“I read the complaint in the press and I understand they were housed in a cell. That is the way all persons are kept when they are brought in the station, whether you are man or woman, Bahamian or not,” Chief Supt Rolle said.

“You have a choice when you are arrested – you sleep on the bench or you sleep on the floor, that is how it has always been done. Maybe Jamaica has better housing conditions and beds in their holding cells, but we don’t.

“Even though they were released, the investigation into that matter is ongoing, we chose to let them go rather than keep them in custody as a favour but that does not mean that was it for the investigation.”

Last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade in Jamaica wrote to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell about concerns that the Jamaican women “may have been unfairly profiled for arrest and were not afforded proper treatment while in detention.”

However, Mr Mitchell told The Tribune on Friday that his ministry’s investigation into the detention of those women was complete and the findings will be presented in the House of Assembly today.

He also said he has “got all the facts” from the Royal Bahamas Police Force and is in the process of compiling a report to be sent to the foreign affairs minister in Jamaica.