Three Jamaicans Remain in Police Custody After Entering Belize

Tonight, two Jamaican nationals who arrived in Belize between October twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth remain in custody. Their attorney has filed for a judicial review of their detention. The two men, thirty-seven-year-old Devon Duran Dean and twenty-four-year-old Khairo Fisher, faced criminal charges this morning after attempting to enter Belize through the Phillip Goldson International Airport in Ladyville. Denied entry, they somehow ended up with criminal charges while detained. Dean and Fisher were arraigned on separate charges in different courtrooms but were both represented by attorney Norman Rodriguez. Dean was charged with aggravated assault for allegedly attacking an immigration officer with a wooden chair while detained at the Global Village Hotel, and for escaping lawful custody. Initially, Dean pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault but guilty to escape. The magistrate indicated a fine between six hundred and one thousand dollars for the escape charge. The aggravated assault charge was later dropped after Rodriguez argued that Dean was charged under a non-existent section of the act. Dean was fined eight hundred dollars for escaping, which he had to pay immediately. Fisher faced a single charge of harm for allegedly injuring a security guard at the Global International Hotel. He pleaded guilty and was fined three hundred dollars. Despite their guilty pleas, their troubles are far from over. Dean, Fisher, and a third Jamaican, John Brown, remain in custody. During our interview with Dean, he was once again detained by police.

 

Devon Dean, Jamaican National

“They hand me over to the police and when they hand me over to the police they said they are not in charge of me anymore. So, I am with my lawyer. Video them Anita. In the morning I feel threatened, it fell 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 thy 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 officer point on 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 balling, 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.”