Vacation from hell? Jamaicans detained by police, plead guilty to escape from and harm to Immigration officers

Published by BBNTEAM at November 21, 2024

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Posted: Thursday, November 21, 2024. 12:51 pm CST.

By Aaron Humes: Two Jamaican men accused of attempting to illegally enter Belize through the Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA) faced criminal charges related to their lengthy stay at the Ladyville Global Village Hotel.

They first arrived between October 24 and 26 and remain here as their attorney has filed an application for judicial review into their detention.

37-year-old Devon Duran Dean, a security officer from Kingston, and 24-year-old Khairo Fisher, a mechanic of the parish of Manchester, were separately charged with aggravated assault and escape from lawful custody and harm respectively. Defense counsel Norman Rodriguez represented both men.

Dean was accused of assaulting an Immigration Officer with a wooden chair at Global Village Hotel, Mile 7, Philip Goldson Highway at Ladyville, Belize District, on November 18 and thereafter escaping from the lawful custody of an Immigration Officer while under detention for his status as a non-bona fide tourist under Belizean law.

Dean pleaded not guilty to the assault charge, though he denies even attacking the officer, but after Rodriguez asserted that the section of the law cited does not even exist, it was withdrawn following consultation. He pleaded guilty, however, to the escape charge and paid a fine of $800 and court costs.

Dean, who came to court sporting a broken foot, was speaking to our court reporter on Wednesday afternoon when, incredibly, he was detained once more. Before that, however, he was able to tell part of his story after being denied entry: “In the morning I feel threatened, it felt like I was kidnapped. So, I looked down and saw the officer sleeping so I said I am no going down the step because I don’t know if they are trigger happy and will see me going and shoot me. So, I jumped through the window and landed on my feet. I kinda feel hungry so I went across the road and process something to eat because the night before I did not get something to eat. So, on the way purchasing it and walking down the road. I saw a white vehicle, people jump out, point gun in my face and tell me don’t move. They carried me back to the hotel. When I am the hotel I told them, they ask me where I was going. I told them I was going to eat something. One of the immigration officers points at me and stepped on my foot and then I say ah you broke my foot. No one wanted to assist me when I told them I feeling pain. I was crying, bawling, living eye water before someone took me to the hospital. They get a prescription to fill out. Up to now they didn’t give me a prescription. The only officer that gave me something was an officer by the name of Johnson.”

Rodriguez, for his part, was baffled by the entire affair, saying he had never heard of the term ‘non-bona fide tourist’ before. As for the judicial review, he explained, he can prove his clients met the terms to enter Belize: “When they came in, they came in with what the law requires of them, the Immigration Act, that you have to prove under section 5 (1) (a) that you will not become a charge on public funds – just like in every country that you go to, I go to other countries and I must also establish that to the Immigration officer that interviews me. So they had brought in monies – $2,000, one said $1,500 before, one said $4,000 U.S. All three had return itineraries from Belize, the longest being for three weeks, the shortest for one week, they had hotel bookings, they had everything that should have satisfied an Immigration officer that they would not be a charge on public funds.”

Meanwhile, Fisher was arraigned on the harm charge this afternoon and pleaded guilty, paying a fine of $300 and cost of court. He was accused of choking a security guard at Global Village Hotel while in detention, although he told his lawyer that was not how it went down. Fisher produced an itinerary and interest in staying with family members already here for three weeks.

According to Attorney Rodriguez, Fisher and Dean and a third Jamaican national, John Brown, who remains in police custody in Ladyville, did not enter Belize together; however Dean and Brown were in a group of 7 friends and two of Dean’s friends were allowed entry into Belize with no problems, while a female with two minor children was sent back home.

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