Jamaican?Shanique?Myrie is back in Barbados.
She arrived on a Caribbean Airways flight from Kingston at 5:55 p.m. yesterday.
About half-an-hour later, she emerged from the Arrivals Hall at Grantley Adams International Airport after being quickly ushered through Immigration and Customs.
Dressed in a red top and black slacks, Myrie, who alleges she was finger-raped by Immigration authorities and denied entry to the island a year ago, appeared to enjoy unimpeded access this time around.
However, the 24-year-old was reluctant to have her photograph taken, doing everything to avoid the camera.
Accompanied by her two lawyers, Myrie remained silent when asked for a comment about her return to Barbados.
“No statements, please, no statements,” was the instruction from her senior attorney Michelle Brown, who along with fellow Jamaican lawyer Mark Ramsay, is representing Myrie.
“We are here to seek justice,” Ramsay told the DAILY NATION in a brief comment.
Myrie, through her attorneys, will tomorrow argue in a preliminary procedural hearing before the
Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – which is convening its first sitting outside of Trinidad here this week – to have the CCJ hear the matter in its entirety.
However, the Barbados Government through its defence team is expected to submit that the CCJ has no jurisdiction to hear the substantive matter.
“Wednesday’s application is merely one for leave as to whether the court will grant Myrie permission to have her case heard by the CCJ. She has not made out an arguable case to be heard. She has not established an absolute right to enter Barbados,” said Roger Forde, QC, who is heading the Barbados defence team.
The Myrie case, which sparked a diplomatic controversy between Barbados and Jamaica, is the third of four regional matters the CCJ will hear at the Barbados Supreme Court, switching its sitting from its Port of Spain, Trinidad headquarters.
Myrie is claiming that on her arrival in the island on March 14 last year, prior to being subjected to a cavity search, she was taunted and called a liar by a female Immigration officer after being questioned about reasons for her trip here.
But Forde, who along with Donna Brathwaite of the Attorney General’s Chambers is representing the Barbados Government, has called Myrie’s statement a fabrication.
As part of the court filings, the Government, through a special investigative police report commissioned by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, said a thorough and comprehensive probe had found Myrie’s allegations not to be true.
It also submitted that there was never any body searches or discriminatory remarks, as claimed by Myrie. (TS)
