The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Immigration Minister Brent Symonette said the Office of the Attorney General should do what it is paid to do and provide answers in court cases. 

His comment to The Tribune yesterday came after seven asylum seekers were released from the Carmichael Road Detention Centre on Wednesday.

Attorney Fred Smith took legal action last month, seeking to make the government prove it acted lawfully when officials detained the refugees, who had fled Cameroon over persecution fears.

The government was given until April 7 to explain why the asylum seekers had been indefinitely detained, but an explanation was not given and during a virtual hearing before Justice Bernard Turner this week, a government lawyer said arrangements were made to release the refugees.

Mr Symonette said yesterday: “I don’t know how or why the Attorney General’s Office didn’t answer, unless they didn’t think they had an answer. The government has a responsibility to respond to the courts and someone should give the public an answer as to what happened. That they were released doesn’t prove that they were legitimate asylum seekers, but the Office of the Attorney General is representing taxpayers.

“This has nothing to do with the Attorney General of a particular administration, it’s just a matter of justice for these people and justice for the Bahamian people. We pay these bills.”

The detainees, who left the detention centre shortly before 2pm on Wednesday, said they were shocked by the “brutal and hostile” treatment they received and were traumatised by their experience in custody.

The refugees had reportedly fled sectarian conflict in Cameroon where they were targeted as members of a minority group.

Group members said they were interviewed by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and were in the process of having their political refugee status officially confirmed when they were detained.