Heated hearing over privacy rights of King’s mother
Published:Tuesday | November 15, 2022 | 12:12 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The legal battle between the police and Amoi Leon Issa, the mother of nine-year-old Gabriel King, over access to her phone as they probe the child’s January 13 murder escalated into a heated exchange over Issa’s privacy rights in the St James Parish Court on Monday.
The hearing was in relation to Issa’s refusal to grant the police access to her cellular phone after they made a production order.
Attorney-at-law Chukwuemeka Cameron, who represented Issa, had a testy back-and-forth with parish judge Sasha Ashley as he argued that his client, who was not present in court, was being disadvantaged by the police’s order.
“Section 21 of the Cybercrimes Act acknowledges that any search of any computer device is a restriction on one’s right to privacy. In recognising that it is a restriction of one’s right to privacy, and in respect of Ms Issa’s right to privacy, the legislation has prescribed certain safeguards that the court must consider,” Cameron told the court.
“It prescribes what steps the State must put in place before any restriction of the client’s right to privacy is restricted. This legislation has not left it up to any court to determine what those safeguards should be,” the attorney added.
In response, a visibly unamused Ashley ordered that Cameron and the attorney representing the Jamaica Constabulary Force come to an agreement on the terms of the phone search.
“You were aware of what safeguards the applicant is seeking. Can counsel now speak to each other and agree to those terms? If the production order is to be varied, then let us do that, but what I am not going to do is sit and listen to someone read the act to me,” the judge said.
The court informed that there had been previous discussions in which expectations were outlined concerning Issa’s compliance with the order.
Following an in-chamber meeting with the attorneys, the hearing was set for continuation on November 18.
King was reportedly abducted on January 13 along the Tucker main road in St James, after assailants dragged his mother from the vehicle in which they were travelling and sped off with the child in the back seat.
The vehicle was later found along the Fairfield main road and King’s body was found slumped in the back seat with the throat slashed.
The police have indicated that they have been stonewalled in their investigations by a lack of cooperation from persons close to the matter.
Law enforcers were reportedly granted a court order on September 6 for Issa to give the cops access to her cellular phone, which is in police custody. Communication cell site data were also to be handed over to the police within 48 hours.
Issa has challenged the order.