PHILIPSBURG--The Judge of the Court of First Instance on Friday, September 26, ordered the immediate release of a 24-year-old male Jamaican immigrant without documentation for the island, who attorney Remco Stomp said had been unlawfully detained.

 

Stomp said the man said he had been talking to some friends in front of a supermarket in Cole Bay the week before when he saw his friends running away from him in the midst of their conversation. According to him he felt a hard push in the back and turned to see who attacked him. He saw two police officers and heard he was under arrest. He was handcuffed, taken to the police station and locked up in the holding cells for criminal suspects in the back of the police station.

 

His family members were instructed by immigration officers to purchase a ticket for him for immediate deportation. The family members had a chance to shortly see him and found him wounded with a bloodshot black eye and bruises, Stomp said.

 

"They learned that he was punched in the eye and throat, among other things, as well as heavily insulted and threatened by the police officers." The family retained Stomp to assist them with the case. Stomp visited the young man at the police station and found him wounded as described.

 

The man told Stomp that he had a long term relationship with a French woman. His mother was a permanent resident and living in St. Maarten for almost 20 years. She had tried to organise his papers, but somehow did not succeed. He had no criminal record. He had in principle no objection to be deported for the reason that he was confident to be re-admitted to St. Martin, Stomp said. "He was in a holding cell with several criminal suspects and inside the cell it was unbearably hot. There was no air-conditioning and no fan for cooling. He found the heat was making him and his fellow inmates desperate, reason that he tried to get as many showers as were allowed," Stomp said.

 

Stomp contacted immigration and requested a few days' time for the man to get his belongings and make preparations for his deportation as is provided for in article 15 of the law on admission and expulsion LTU. When this was denied Stomp filed an immediate injunction for his release.

 

Two days later Stomp was in court with his client and requested the immediate release of his client. Stomp argued that the arrest was unlawful for there appeared to be no reason for the police to hold his client up and arrest him, much less to ill treat him while doing so. In order to be arrested there has to be a reasonable suspicion of guilt or an obvious suspicion that the person in question was illegally residing on the island Stomp said. Just arresting people because they look Jamaican, Chinese or Spanish does not make them a criminal suspect or an illegally residing citizen Stomp argued; an activity which is called (racial) profiling and which is specifically not taken lightly in countries like the US and Canada with their immigrant populations, Stomp explained.

 

Stomp in addition argued that the arrest was also in serious breach of the locally existing general identification ordinance for in this case his client was not even asked for his identification, but immediately arrested.

 

Furthermore, the treatment his client received at his arrest was, putting it mildly, not in accordance with the law Stomp said. "Even if my client resisted during his arrest, as the police claimed, there are many other professional ways police personnel have legally to their availability to subdue suspects." He said undocumented individuals should be held separate from criminal suspects which was and still is not the case. The judge ordered the man's immediate release.

 

(The Daily Herald)

 

The 24 year old Jamaican was represented in this case by attorney Remco Stomp of Stomp lawyers in Sint Maarten.