Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Barbados PM breaks silence on Shanique Myrie case



BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said surveillance cameras will be installed at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) as Barbados continues to deal with the controversy sparked by allegations by a Jamaican woman that she had been sexually abused by immigration officials on her arrival here last month.

In his first televised news conference with the state-owned Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) yesterday night, Stuart, who became head of government following the death of Prime Minister David Thompson last October, said that 20-year-old Shanique Myrie is free to return to Barbados and identify the person who assaulted her.

"There will be cameras put where there are none now so that in the event of a recurrence. Camera evidence should be available to confirm the allegations or contradict it. There has been a very persistent issue relating to the installation of cameras at our ports of entry and one of the questions I asked in the meeting I convened was whether the existence of cameras would have played any role in the instant resolution of this matter and there was a resounding consensus that had cameras been in the right place there would be no scope for speculation," said Stuart.

Jamaican foreign minister, Ken Baugh, has said that the matter could be headed to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) if Bridgetown and Kingston cannot work out their differences.
Last month Jamaica sent a high level delegation to Bridgetown for talks with Barbadian authorities on the issue after Myrie said she was subjected to an invasive cavity search by a female immigration officer when she arrived in Barbados on March 14.

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