News Briefs
Published:Monday | June 3, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Jamaican flees from airport after being denied entry into T&T
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service is probing an incident in which a Jamaican national, who was refused entry into the twin-island republic, eluded immigration and airline security officials and left the Piarco International Airport on Saturday.
The Sunday Guardian newspaper reports that the Jamaican man, who is in his early 20s, arrived in Trinidad aboard a Caribbean Airlines flight from Kingston on Friday.
It is reported that the man – whose name was not released – has pending drug-related matters in Jamaica and had attempted to enter Trinidad previously on three occasions.
When he attempted to re-enter the country on Friday, he was stopped by immigration authorities and placed in an immigration detention holding room at the airport.
However, when immigration officers went to check on the man early Saturday, he could not be found.
The Guardian reports that officers later discovered that the man had removed a ceiling tile in the roof of the room and climbed inside the area before making his escape.
The Airports Authority of T&T confirmed that the Jamaican had escaped from immigration and airline security officials and left the airport, adding that by law, people who were refused entry by the Immigration Division become the responsibility of the airline.
Jamaican US legislator salutes Seaga
NEW YORK (CMC):
A Jamaica-born legislator in the United States has joined nationals at home and in the diaspora in paying tribute to former Jamaica Prime Minster Edward Seaga, who died in a Miami hospital last Tuesday.
The 89-year-old Seaga, Jamaica’s fifth prime minister, was ailing with cancer.
“Upon his election to prime minister in 1980, Mr Seaga helped bring stability to not only Jamaica but (to) the entire Caribbean region, navigating Jamaica through the turbulent, unpredictable decade of the 1980s,” New York State Assemblyman Nick Perry, the representative for the 58th Assembly District in Brooklyn, New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation on Saturday.
“Upon his departure from the prime minister’s office in 1989, inflation and unemployment had both fallen across the island, and Jamaica was experiencing modest but steady economic growth.
“Perhaps, most importantly, was that Mr Seaga had unwittingly helped decrease the ideological differences of the two major parties by pushing for social changes that benefited those in both the middle and poorer economic classes without any frightening shake up of the upper and rich classes of Jamaica,” the assemblyman noted.
Perry hailed Seaga for his “unwavering and historic service to all the people of Jamaica and for his tenure as prime minister".
US man gets life for killing 11-y-o J'can
FREEHOLD, New Jersey (AP):
A New Jersey man who admitted to raping and killing his 11-year-old Jamaican neighbour was sentenced to life in prison last Friday, three months after pleading guilty on the eve of his trial.
Twenty-year-old Andreas Erazo will have to serve 85 per cent of his sentence, or roughly 64 years, before being eligible for parole, under terms of his sentence.
Andreas Erazo pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated sexual assault in February in the death of Abbiegail Smith in Keansburg, Monmouth County.
Smith was reported missing on the evening of July 12, 2017. Investigators found her body the next morning wrapped in a comforter on a roof near the apartment building where she and Erazo lived.
Erazo initially claimed he fatally stabbed the girl because he thought she was an intruder. He later conceded that was false and confessed he raped and killed her.
Smith's father, Kenroy Smith, lives in Jamaica, where he was deported in 2001 after a marijuana arrest. He and Abbiegail's sister, Kennish Smith, were denied temporary visas to attend the girl's funeral, despite the father's public plea to President Donald Trump. At the time, the State Department said it is prohibited by law from disclosing details about individual visa cases.
J'cans urges to prepare as hurricane season gets under way
With the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season now under way, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) is imploring Jamaicans to heighten preparedness for any eventualities.
Addressing a press conference last Friday, ODPEM Chairman Joy Douglas said that citizens, particularly those living in vulnerable areas, must heed warnings, remain alert, and put measures in place to ensure their safety during times of emergencies.
Director of the Meteorological Service, Evan Thompson, said experts are anticipating a “near-normal” Atlantic hurricane season, with some nine to 15 tropical storms forecast for the six-month period, which ends on November 30.
“Four to eight could become hurricanes, with two to four being major hurricanes. They will reach category three, four or five, with the potential to create significant damage to the island’s infrastructure. We have to prepare ourselves for anything that could happen,” Thompson said.