No money for plane ticket, so $800k for Antiguan detained for 145 days

A HIGH COURT judge has awarded compensation to an Antiguan man who was detained for 145 days because the Ministry of National Security could not buy an airline ticket for his deportation.

Justice Avason Quinlan-Williams  ordered the State on Friday to pay Troy Thomas compensation of $700,000 in general damages and $100,000 in exemplary damages.

Thomas filed a false-imprisonment claim for the time he spent in detention while waiting for the State to effect his deportation before the court ordered his release.

On two occasions in 2016 and 2019 two different judges  ordered his release on a writ of habeas corpus after  immigration officials detained him.

According to the evidence in the case, Thomas was first detained by immigration officials and ordered to be deported on March 2, 2007.

With his appeal against the decision pending, Thomas was released on a series of supervision orders from the Immigration Division.

While on the orders, Thomas allegedly committed fraud and larceny offences and was released on bail pending the trials of the cases.

In October 2018, immigration officials detained him again and sought to immediately enforce the previously stayed order, based on his repeated non-compliance.

However, they opted not to deport him until they received advice from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on the criminal charges.

In his claim, Thomas’ lawyer Gerald Ramdeen contended that Thomas should not have been detained based on the criminal charges. He also contended that Thomas should have been deported by the Immigration Division and then extradited by the DPP’s Office to face trial.

Justice Vasheist Kokaram, in his 2019 ruling, agreed and ordered Thomas’s immediate release, saying immigration officers did not have the power to delay the deportation because he had pending criminal matters.

“If indeed it was evident to the authorities that his deportation could not be effected within a reasonable period of time as a result of his pending criminal charges then he ought to have been released,” Kokaram said.

In his submissions before Quinlan-Williams, the lawyer said the facts of the case were troubling and disturbing because it concerned the manner and treatment of citizens of member states of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the clear absence of any existing mechanisms for their removal and repatriation when they were found to have overstayed their time in Trinidad and Tobago.

“The more troubling aspect of this claim is the nature of the conditions that the claimant was subject to while awaiting deportation and the unchallenged fact that his deprivation of liberty was principally due to the shortage of funds by the Ministry of National Security to purchase an airplane ticket to secure the return of the claimant to Antigua.”

He said that proposition was irrational and absurd and pointed to the administrative bureaucracy that plagued the operations of state machinery.

Thomas also complained of the conditions at the Immigration Detention Centre. He said in his evidence he stayed in a crowded dormitory with 17 others and had to sleep on a mattress on the floor.

On the odd occasion he got a bed when detainees left the dormitory, he said the experience was not much more pleasant since the beds smelled of perspiration and were stained with urine and other bodily fluids.

“…This made the experience of sleeping on the bed unhygienic, unsanitary, and foul.” He also developed back pains as a result of sleeping on the floor.

Thomas said the ventilation in the dormitory was poor and he only got to go outside for an hour and a half for six days a week. When there were staff shortages, he did not go outside for days.

There were also frequent fights and he said he kept to himself mostly for fear of being attacked by other detainees.

In his submissions, Ramdeen said the court would have to determine an appropriate figure to representing the suffering Thomas endured.

“This is not a case where the claimant has been convicted of any criminal offence, but one where the executive is authorised to deprive the claimant of his liberty for the sole purpose of effecting his deportation.”

Ramdeen said it was unfortunate and unforgivable that the court had to preside over a claim for false imprisonment which only came to an end on the intervention of Kokaram in the second habeas corpus proceedings.

Also representing Thomas was attorney Dayadai Harripaul.