The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE government suffered another defeat in the courts yesterday when it agreed to apologise to an African man who was unlawfully held in detention for nearly seven years after he travelled to The Bahamas from Jamaica for a three week vacation in 2010.

The order to apologise — and to pay damages to the Ghana native — came just a few weeks after the government released a number of asylum seekers from Cameroon who were detained in the Carmichael Road Detention Centre for almost two years.

In the judgment on liability order, the attorney general, minister of immigration, commissioner of police, director of immigration and the officer-in-charge of the Carmichael Road Detention Centre—who are all listed as defendants—agreed to “concede liability” to Joseph Amihere’s claims of “intolerable and inexcusable” treatment while being unlawfully imprisoned.

According to Mr Amihere’s original writ of summons and a supplemental witness statement filed earlier this year, in September 2010, he travelled to The Bahamas from Kingston, Jamaica as a “lawful visitor”. 

“On or around October 1, 2010 I was travelling in Nassau on a jitney bus. After getting off the bus in the downtown area, I realised that I had lost my pouch with all my documents, including my identification and travel documents. The documents were my Ghanaian ID and driver’s licence and my passport,” a statement from Mr Amihere submitted to the court read. 

“I decided to wait in the downtown area to see if the bus would pass by the same route so I could get back my documents. A few buses stopped and I didn’t get on the buses so maybe that caused people to become suspicious and they may have called the police as while waiting at the bus stop I was arrested by the police.”

After being held at the Central Police Station for five days, Mr Amihere was transferred to the detention facility where he remained until May 2017 when he was released on a successful habeas corpus application.

Callenders & Co, the law firm representing Mr Amihere, noted their client was never brought before the courts for breaching any immigration laws nor was he the “subject of a deportation order under the Immigration Act”. They also said while Mr Amihere was detained, he was “beaten several times” by Defence Force and Immigration officers during routine searches of the dorms at the Detention Centre.

They said these factors, in addition to the unsanitary environment Mr Amihere was subject to while at the facility, proved he was “deprived of his personal liberty” and had sustained injuries, loss and damage.

One such instance was mentioned in Mr Amihere’s witness statement, when he recalled a “big fight” that broke out in one of the dorms in June 2012.

“I went to the front office, to find an immigration or defence force officer to come and break up the fight and (the) officers came into the dorm and started hitting me with a baton which ended up injuring my left elbow. I was taken to the Flamingo Gardens Clinic for medical attention. After that they took me to the Princess Margaret Hospital where I spent three weeks. I still have a bulge in my left elbow. Up to now I still experience pain in my elbow. I use Bengay and a variety of painkillers to manage the pain.”

He added: “Prior to 2015 the conditions of the Detention Centre were very bad. The toilets were always clogged. They expected us to clean them but most of the time there were no cleaning products to use and so the bathrooms stunk...The shower stalls were clogged most of the time. We had to bathe in an open shower stall with dirty water trapped in the showers. There was no privacy. It was very degrading to me.”

He said for the first six months he was at the facility, the dorm “was so crowded” that there were no beds available for many of the detainees.

“I slept on the floor without sheet or blanket for six months,” he said. “The bed shortage ended in 2015 when they opened a new dorm for the Haitians and transferred them there. The conditions improved after that.”

He also said he was transferred to the prison in Fox Hill several times during his detention, and still has “nightmares” about the horrible conditions he endured there. 

Mr Amihere also said when he first arrived at the Detention Centre, his cell phone and $200 cash were taken from him by the immigration officials, but the money was never returned to him after he was released. 

“I returned to the Detention Centre after my release to request the return of my clothing and personal items but I was turned away as I was told that the items were thrown away,” he stated. “Everything that I had was lost in a flash.”

Mr Amihere also said he lost contact with his immediate relatives in Ghana and his children in Jamaica since he was not able to use a phone while in the Detention Centre. He added that although he made an application for a work permit to help “sustain myself”, he has not received a response from the Department of Immigration since he submitted his application in November 2017.

“This has caused me even more hardships,” Mr Amihere’s court documents note. “I have no money to take care of myself. I have been sleeping in an old abandoned car since my release. I have no income, no family here and I have no work permit.”

Mr Amihere’s action asserts that he claims “aggravated and exemplary damages arising from his assault, battery, false imprisonment, and inhuman and degrading treatment”. 

The assessment of damages is scheduled for May 6.