The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

A MOTHER desperate for answers over the disappearance of her son will get her day in court later this month.

It follows a habeas corpus application filed by rights group Rights Bahamas, seeking to compel the Royal Bahamas Police Force to produce Marvin Pratt, 40, a Gambier Village resident police deny having in custody.

Mr Pratt’s family insists Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) officers arrested him on December 5, 2018, a claim Police Commissioner Anthony Ferguson has denied.

The matter will be heard before Supreme Court Justice Andrew Forbes on February 28, when government defendants in the matter: the commissioner of police, police force and the Attorney General will be expected to submit a response to the claims.

In her affidavit filed last month, Mr Pratt’s mother, Barbara Saunders, alleges an officer told the family her son was taken into custody.

Police have been investigating the matter as a missing person case and have suggested it is irresponsible for media to report the family’s claims.

Ms Saunders previously said this is the longest she has gone without knowing her son’s whereabouts, claiming he was in police custody for about seven days in February. She claimed officers repeatedly told her at the time he was not there before a senior police officer intervened and allowed her to see him.

She said Mr Pratt has served time in prison on drug related matters.

In December a neighbour told The Tribune she saw police put Mr Pratt into a vehicle.

She claimed: “I was cleaning a man’s bathroom and when I was going home that morning I saw the police coming and I saw Marvin, so I said ‘Marvin run, run, run, the man, the man,’ and they ran behind him, put him in a Jeep, and the officer told me if I open my (expletive) mouth he gon’ kill me.”