The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

THE wife of a Bahamian recently pardoned from his prison sentence in Cuba and deported back to Nassau has alleged that police officers have targeted him since his return, even arresting him during the holidays for what she thinks are baseless reasons.

Antonia Ferguson Green, wife of Jamaric Green, said her family was left devastated by recent actions taken against her husband since his return from Cuba last September.

Prior to his 2012 arrest in Cuba for drug related offences, Mr Green and his wife were charged with possessing an illegal firearm.

However, charges against the pair were dismissed and the case reportedly thrown out, Mrs Ferguson Green, 28, said.

However, she said that shortly after her husband was pardoned in Cuba and deported back to Nassau, he was placed on bail in connection with the 2012 matter.

Mrs Ferguson Green told The Tribune since then, her husband has been routinely arrested and detained on “made-up foolishness the police come up with on the way to our house.”

“This was supposed to be our family’s first holiday together; a dream come true,” she said. “It hasn’t been anything near what we had expected. Every weekend, like clock work, every chance they get, officers are at our door with (handcuffs) out asking for my husband.”

“He can’t hold down a job, he can’t earn a sensible living because like clock work, every couple of days the police are behind him, arresting him on charges that don’t make sense.”

She said her husband was arrested twice over a seven-day period during the holiday season.

On December 23, Mr Green was reportedly arrested in connection with an armed robbery investigation and released three days later on December 26, Boxing Day, his wife said.

On December 30, Mr Green was arrested yet again and this time in connection with an illegal firearm investigation, she said.

“Why give a man bail if your plan is to pick them up every chance you get? That makes no sense, when you do that to a man you force them to become bitter and force them to become angry. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for my husband; he has truly tried his best to turn his life around,” Mrs Ferguson Green said.

“All of this pushes them to the wrong side of the law. They can’t work like this, they can’t do anything because jobs are already hard to find with a record and an ankle bracelet, when you add to it missing work constantly because you are being arrested it gives your boss the perception that you are a trouble-maker.”

“If he loses his job now where does that leave him? Where does that leave our family?”

Mrs Ferguson Green believes police are targeting her husband as part of a widespread operation to give the public the impression they are working to address violent crimes.

“They say the people on bail are the ones committing all the crime, you see, that is why the take the time out to arrest these men. They put them behind bars for short periods of time to keep crime down. I guess that isn’t working because everyday there is a murder or a robbery or a rape.”

“This is unfair and this is hurtful. I love my husband and to have to explain to my young child that daddy isn’t here because he got arrested, arrested again, just like last week and the week before - that is getting super hard to do.”

Jamaric Green was one of nine Bahamians freed after Cuba announced pardons for more than 3,500 prisoners to mark the four-day visit of the Pope last September.

He was convicted in 2012 of drug trafficking after allegedly attempting to “carry out an operation of transfer of (marijuana).”

Last March, The Tribune published a story with Mrs Ferguson Green raising concerns over her husband’s sentencing and treatment in Cuba’s prison system.