There may be logical explanations in the event that a foreign national escapes from Her Majesty’s Prison and is returned there by way of the courts under a different name. That could possibly happen where the person was neither photographed nor fingerprinted and is not remembered by the police or any one at the prison.
However, that is far-fetched because the system is not designed to operate in that manner. It is not supposed to be dependent on human memory and the equipment is in place to ensure that it is so. People convicted for criminal offences and sentenced to prison are automatically photographed and fingerprinted ﾗ or they should be.
When a person escapes from the prison, the police have in their files all the relevant material that is needed to give to the media and the public as a warning to be on the lookout for the escapee. Photographs of escaped convicts should be in every patrol vehicle and on display in every police station. It should not be possible that a man, for whom the police are diligently searching, is arrested, processed, charged, taken to court and sentenced to prison without being recognised as an escaped prisoner.
But it happened and leaves us begging the question: How did escaped prisoner Adlet Cilice get sentenced to a month in prison ﾗ under an assumed name ﾗ without anyone being the wiser. Why was he not fingerprinted when he was charged and those prints fed into the data bank to determine if they might match prints taken from crime scenes, and are still unsolved? This surely was not the good work for which the Royal Bahamas Police Force is noted.
When these things start to happen, without question, the national security of this country is in jeopardy. To whom then do we turn for protection? Who is on guard?
There are illegal immigrants ﾗ particularly from Haiti ﾗ who have been repatriated from The Bahamas more than once. That is understood for those people who are processed through the Detention Centre in short order and the kinds of records on them may not be kept that would alert authorities and set them up for stiffer penalties than mere repatriation.
They leave here smiling, knowing that they will be back. Some jokingly wave good-bye to relatives with shouts of “see you next week.”
And it is not a secret that Haitian boats have been known to come undetected into Nassau Harbour and tie up at Arawak Cay, some most likely with illegal goods and undocumented people aboard. They could very well plan an invasion to take over New Providence and when the Bahamian people realise what is happening, it could be much too late.
So it does absolutely no good to spend millions of dollars on the new technology and to send officers away for the best training, if it is not going to be used in all of its capabilities.
The procedures are in place and they need only be followed. With that knowledge, the residents of this capital island and those throughout the country should be able to rest easier.
Source: The Nassau Guardian
