FURY OVER RELEASE

The “ordered” release of an American man from police custody after he was accused of verbally abusing and threatening the safety of an immigration officer at the Sangster International Airport has sparked allegations of political interference from angry border protection officers in St James.

Multiple Sunday Gleaner sources confirmed that the man, who is a relative of a former politician, arrived in the island on a United Airlines flight from Dallas, Texas, on Friday, June 23, around 10 p.m.

He was denied entry when he arrived at the airport in the western end of the island because of an issue with the United States passport that he travelled on.

The man is accused of behaving “boisterously” and raining blows on the plexiglass separating him and the immigration officer who had conducted the interview.

According to reports, he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, handcuffed and transferred to the Barnett Street police lock-up in the parish, where the incident was recorded in the station’s cell diary.

An entry in the cell diary means he was placed inside the lock-up at the Barnett Street Police Station, said one police source, citing internal procedures.

“That’s how you are accounted for as one of the persons in custody. In order for you to come out, someone high-ranking has to write, giving authorisation for you to be released,” the source said.

But no sooner than he was placed in a cell, a call was made to have him released, shortly after 11 p.m., several official sources disclosed.

On Friday, Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang, who also has portfolio responsibility for immigration matters, admitted to The Sunday Gleaner that he gave instructions for the man to be released “on humanitarian grounds”.

Chang said that the man came to Jamaica with his family to attend the funeral of his grandmother.

The security minister said that his travel document “had some damage”, but was still functional.

He said that the man was detained by immigration to be returned on the next available flight, which was the following day.

Chang said that his family called and asked if he could be released on humanitarian grounds because he was scheduled to attend the funeral the next day then leave the island on Sunday.

“This is not an unusual request or activity,” Chang told The Sunday Gleaner.

The minister said he telephoned the chief executive officer of the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), Andrew Wynter, “and he had the same request”.

“He said it was quite feasible and legal for the minister [of national security] to request his release on such grounds because immigration does this from time to time,” Chang said, referring to Wynter.

“Most times, it doesn’t even reach the minister,” he added.

Chang, who is also the deputy prime minister, said it was only after the man was released that he learnt that he became “very boisterous” when immigration officers told him he would be refused entry into Jamaica.

But the national security minister insisted that the man was never charged with any crime.

“If he assaulted somebody and was charged, I could not release him. He would have to get a lawyer and go seek bail,” Chang said.

‘Perverting the course of justice’

However, Sunday Gleaner sources close to the matter insisted that the man was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct and said that a former high-ranking politician had also telephoned a senior official at PICA requesting the man’s release.

“So [the PICA official] actually called the police station and say, ‘Let out the man’. That didn’t sit well with the [immigration] officers because what that is saying is that the very said entity that is supposed to be defending a principle, the said entity is perverting the course of justice,” one of several sources who spoke to The Sunday Gleaner on condition of anonymity claimed.

“You cannot operate in a way where because it is the relative of a friend or certain people then they are going to get off but the man who don’t know anybody going to have to go to court and face the tribunal. So the immigration officers are very peeved about that and they said they are not going to tolerate it.”

Part IV Section 4 Subsections (c) and (d) of the 1946 Aliens Act outline that anyone who “obstructs or impedes” an immigration officer in the exercise of his powers or duties or, without lawful authority, uses or has any forged, altered, or irregular certificate, passport, or other document or any passport or document on which any visa or endorsement has been altered or forged is guilty of an offence.

The fine is $10,000 or three years in prison.

Part IV Section 17, on the other hand, gives the minister the power to grant exemptions.

It outlines that the minister “may direct that any person or class of persons shall be exempt either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as the minister may impose from all or any of the provisions” of the act.

However, The Sunday Gleaner source argued that while the act gives the minister discretion to grant exemptions, there is no legislation that gives him the power to act after someone is arrested and charged.

“And the minister cannot make a [phone] call. He has to put it in writing. These offences are to be tried in court. Going forward, no instruction like that will be taken anymore,” the source stressed.

Several attempts by The Sunday Gleaner to speak with Clifford Chambers, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) in charge of Area One, which covers St James and three other western parishes, to confirm if charges were laid against the man were unsuccessful.

Chambers initially told The Sunday Gleaner that he was not aware of the matter but would make checks.

Up to press time yesterday, there was no update from the ACP.

Woman charged in another incident

The man’s release comes on the heels of a similar incident that occurred a week before at the airport involving an American woman, Juneisha Canegan, who was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm.

According to a court document seen by The Sunday Gleaner, the incident occurred on June 14 at approximately 3:30 p.m. at the Sangster International Airport.

Canegan was accused of behaving “loudly and boisterously”, including hurling several expletives at officers inside the immigration hall.

The document said the complainant, a male immigration officer, requested Canegan’s passport and when she was reluctant, he “took” it out of her hand and proceeded to walk away.

That is when the complainant said that he felt a “hard hit” to the upper right section of his back, causing “sharp pains”.

But Canegan claimed that she was first assaulted by the immigration officer. She was arrested and charged.

That matter is set to be heard on July 11, to allow the woman to arrange legal representation.

The Sunday Gleaner contacted Wynter for comment on both incidents, but he noted that he had just returned to the island and would have to investigate.

Efforts to reach him for an update were unsuccessful.

‘Work to rule’

“The incident involving the man is not the first, the second, the third nor the fourth, and it’s not even necessarily in cases of arrest. You have cases where passengers are not supposed to be landed but because of influence ... ,” a Sunday Gleaner source charged, without completing the thought.

The source said the latest incident has caused immigration officers to take “a strong position” of a “work-to-rule” approach.

“Since the law is variable, according to who knows who, going forward, they will act in the course of the law and if anybody attempts to get involved, they will go straight to the media and divulge the information. So that is the message,” the source said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com