The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe criticised a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s report about the country’s detention systems, saying the experts did not provide proof of many of their accusations about the country’s criminal justice system.

After the WGAD visited ten facilities and reportedly interviewed over 134 people, it released a report that found numerous faults.

Mr Munroe said the government will comprehensively respond to the report after the full report is released. He did not address all of the report’s conclusions during a press conference yesterday. 

 The Working Group found that detainees are often detained for significantly longer than 48 hours without court-granted extensions.

 “They speak about persons being detained for more than five days,” Mr Munroe said in response. “Well, anybody who does the math would know that if you are charged on a Friday having been in custody for five days, there is no court to bring you before on a Saturday or a Sunday, and so you will end up being in custody for seven days.”

 The group found the country is not doing enough to ensure forced confessions to crimes are not impeding people’s right to a fair trial.

 The body also said people are too often arrested without a warrant, and arrests are sometimes based on outdated or expired warrants.

 Mr Munroe said: “My question would be, who is giving them this alert? If it is the person who is arrested, that’s not an actual responsible way to go about critiquing persons.

 “If you say that persons have been arrested on outdated warrants, it behoves you to produce the proof of it.”

 “If you say I arrest someone on an outdated warrant, that’s a piece of paper that exists as a fact. I’m not a betting man, but I’m almost willing to bet that they didn’t look at one actual warrant.”

 Mr Munroe said he found the report alarming, adding that it had inconsistencies.

 “This report says that the evidential threshold to prove that a confession was a result of ill-treatment is high. The group reports that an accused has to prove that he was beaten. That is not the law in this country as you all know. The law in this country is that we must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confession was taken without oppression.”

 He urged Bahamians to trust law enforcement and not the “adverse” report findings.

 “One thing I would advise the public against, If you have to choose who you believe, you do yourself a disservice if you choose to believe an adverse report against the very persons who you will call when somebody is at your door, who you will call when you hear gunshots in the night, who you will call when you feel threatened,” he said.

 “So, when you decide whose account to believe, I just want you to take into account that the prisoner, the criminal, would always like you to silence your watchdog.”