Sister says he was taken from airport in-transit lounge, framed and locked away for more than a year

BY KARYL WALKER

Editor — Crime/Court Desk

walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com

YET another Jamaican is claiming that he has been jailed without cause in an eastern Caribbean state.

The Sunday Observer was contacted by the sister of Oniel Barrett, who she said has been languishing in a Golden Grove maximum security prison in Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago for more than a year.

The distraught woman said her 47-year-old brother left for Grenada wearing his Jamaican colours and for weeks she never heard from him.

When she finally heard from her brother, she was shocked to find out that he had been arrested in Trinidad while sitting in the in-transit lounge at the Piarco International Airport.

“We were very worried and never knew where he was. Eventually we found out that he was in prison. He booked his ticket at a travel agency in May Pen and they have kidnapped and framed him,” she charged.

“I managed to speak to him and he told me that some Indian Immigration officers approached him and started being rude. I know my brother; he will not take that sitting down, so he said he answered them in the same manner and that’s when all hell broke loose,” the distraught woman said.

Barrett, his sister claimed, was carted off to jail and accused of smuggling drugs, even though, she said, they found no contraband on him or in his luggage.

He has been in the maximum security prison on remand ever since.

Another Jamaican who was in prison with Barrett also contacted the Sunday Observer and confirmed that he was being treated in an inhumane way by prison guards, even though he committed no crime.

He said Barrett complained that the Trinidadian officials confiscated US$5,000 spending money he was carrying and accused him of carrying drugs.

“The man was on the verge of suicide. He was very sick and after one court appearance the judge ordered them to take him to the doctor and I doubt if he has been taken since. The guards also beat him after accusing him of using obscene language,” said the Jamaican, who has since been released and returned to Jamaica.

The Jamaican man, who served time for attempting to smuggle marijuana into the twin-island republic, said the guards at the Golden Grove prison have a torture chamber where they routinely lock up inmates and have their way with them.

“They locked him up for days in the chamber and never even allowed him to brush his teeth or bathe. Conditions inside that hell are very terrible and you have to try hard to keep your sanity,” the man alleged.

“Barrett asked me to expose his plight to the Jamaican people in the hope that the Government will come to his aid and to expose the unfair treatment he is being subjected to,” he said.

Barrett’s last court date was in October and his sister said she had been informed that he has been remanded until 2015.

“In Trinidad, whether you are innocent or guilty they spite you if you appear in court and do not plead guilty. Cases take sometimes 10 years to go to trial and all that time you have to remain in prison, especially if you are Jamaican,” the man claimed.

The ex-convict said he was lucky to serve only three years after pleading guilty to drug trafficking. He admitted that he did in fact commit the crime but said he has his doubts that Barrett was guilty, due to his stubbornness to accept guilt, even though he faces a long stretch.

“The Government needs to investigate this case and see if they can assist this man. The Trinidadians could not treat an American, British or Canadian that way as their officials would be quick to visit them and make sure they are sent through the system quickly,” he said.

“Our Government needs to look out for its citizens in the same way. He really needs help and someone needs to investigate what happened to his money that was stolen from him,” the man added.

In recent weeks, riots have reportedly broken out in the prison after inmates complained that they were being denied food and water by the prison guards.

The harsh treatment of the prisoners has resulted in some guards being attacked in public and some have even been killed.

In the aftermath of the riots, Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar appointed Professor Ramesh Deosaran to head a special committee to investigate and address conditions inside that nation’s prisons.

Deosaran expressed shock and disgust at the hellish conditions inside the prisons and said he observed looks of hopelessness in the eyes of the inmates he saw.

In a report carried in the Trinidad Express on Friday, Deosaran said he was “shocked, surprised, saddened and angered” at what he saw. He spoke of a dozen men being cramped inside a cell made to house three and said cells were congested and unsanitary.

He also said buckets were being used by inmates to defecate with no running water.

“Inhuman conditions is too mild a way to describe what we have seen,” Deosaran was reported as saying.

He is also reported as saying he saw inmates who were on remand for 13 years and their cases have not yet come to trial.

Jamaican national cyclist Horace McFarlane, who was granted bail in September after spending more than a year inside the same prison, has been ordered to stay in the country by a court but is not allowed to work.

He is scraping to make ends meet and has to be living off the goodwill of others as he is considered a flight risk.

His passport has been seized by the police and has not yet been returned as neither the Trinidadian police nor the Immigration Department can give account for the property of the Jamaican Government.

McFarlane was arrested after cops raided a house he was visiting and found drugs.

Despite him not being the owner of the property and the drugs not being found in the room that he was occupying, the police carted him off to jail and jointly charged him and the woman whom he was visiting, Afeisha Khan, as well as Devon Scotland.

Scotland had prior run-ins with the law and was the main reason that police were watching the premises, sources said.

Both were given bail months before McFarlane.

DEOSARAN… expressed shock and disgust at the hellish conditions inside T’dad prisons

PERSAD-BISSESSAR… appointed Professor Deosaran to head a special committee to investigate and address conditions inside Trinidad’s prisons