Mehul Choksi may have to do time in ‘living hell’ Caribbean prison

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Mehul Choksi may have succeeded in stalling the attempts of multiple governments from repatriating him to India for now, but the fugitive diamantaire’s troubles may just be getting worse.

With a Dominican court ordering him to be put in a prison, he may soon be sent to a cell that is nothing short of a living hell.

The prisons in the Caribbean are notorious for their appalling conditions – without a proper washroom, sanitation- stench would be coming from the corners and the cell itself would be occupied by inmates triple its capacity.

One of Choksi’s Dominican lawyers raised a stink recently on the way the absconding Indian businessman is being treated in the island nation.

“You have arrested someone (Choksi) on suspicion. If toilet in the joint cell is not working, then you have that smell whole day. The inmates use the areas in corners to defecate and urinate or for any other thing they want to expel from their body,” he said terming the Choksi affair as anti-Dom-Indi fiasco.

Recently the Dominican court ordered that the Indian businessman, known to live in uber rich mansions, be sent to the prison. His lawyers have argued that he is unwell and managed to keep him in a hospital.

“Formally, yes,” agreed Choksi’s Antigua lawyer Justin Simon that his client has been ordered to be sent to prison. “Due to his medical condition, he was returned to the hospital.

“Given his medical condition, staying in prison will be a challenge; that would not be justice served,” Simon remarked and threw some light on the state of prisons in the Caribbean.

“As a place of rehabilitation, they are trash. To my mind they create an atmosphere which encourages further criminal behaviour due to influences and bad conditions.”

Lennox Lewis, the Dominica opposition leader, wondered how long Choksi can manage to stay out of the prison. “He is not in the prison at this time and has not yet experienced the conditions at the state prison.

Since spending four days in a cell at Police Headquarters, he has been in hospital under police guard,” the Dominican leader said.

So pathetic are the prisons in the region that Britain refused to deport an Englishman accused of rape in Antigua last year. He was eventually extradited, but only on the condition that he would not be put in awful Antiguan prison.

“I can point to a case here in Antigua that involved a British cop who was accused of rape here in an island,” Algernon Watts, a social and political commentator and a radio talk show host for 20 years on the island, told TOI. “He went back to England. When we wanted to have him extradited to Antigua, Briton refused saying that the prison here is inhuman. We had to sign a contract with England that he will not be housed in the prison. Even though he is convicted of rape, he is being held in a facility that was used by the US naval base. He was convicted last year. He is in the old US Navy base. That is how bad the prisons in the Caribbean are.”

The Antiguan prison was built in 1735, and it has five times the capacity of inmates housed there. In some instances, 8-10 prisoners are kept in one cell, just as in the jails in Dominica. “There is no bathroom facility inside the cell, they have to use one bucket of water to use all their daily chores. It is there for the whole day. Next morning, the prisoners take it out, wash it. It is horrible and deplorable, full of stench. Just the other day one inmate caught Covid and he infected it to the entire prison,” Watts revealed.

A media professional from Antigua and Barbuda has felt Choksi, who resided in the most affluent locality in Antigua, could be in for a real shock when he is sent to the jail. “Antigua or Dominica, the prisons are horrible. Actually, horrible is an understatement,” he said.

[timesofindia.com]

 

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Just send the man back to Antigua or India. Do we usually sent OECS citizens to jail for entering any OECS. It is more than likely that this man was abducted from Antigua and the red shirt buddies in Antigua and Dominica are in cahoots on this case.

  2. It is time for these old inhuman structures built by slaves be demolish or burnt down. They’re polluted with years of diseases lodge in the walls and floors. They’re not fit to house animals to say humans. They’re inhuman and they’re not a rehabilitations facility. Estimate About 70% of the persons that incarcerated behind those historical walls returned back into society worst than they went into prison. Some either mentally and physically mess up, and some become hardcore criminals. I don’t believe that remanded and convicted persons should be house at the same facility. You’re remanded because you either can’t afford the bail fines, and remanded because of severeness of the charge against you. For example, you’re remanded for 55 grams of marijuana because you could not come up $3,000 bill fines. Then you stay on remanded for 2 to 3 years waiting on your case to be heard in the court. Another thing while waiting, you’re face with hardcore criminals convicted and remanded in the prison daily. That alone would drive anyone insane or break you into a criminal if you’re not psychologically and mentally strong.

    • So interesting! It’s only white or white-skinned criminals face jail time in our local prisons that all the hypocrites and political prostitutes come out singing and swinging. You guys are so sickening! From what I hear Caribbean jails are in deplorable condition unfit for use by any human, even a hated criminal. Yet our mouths remain closed and only reopen when some white or white-faced crook faces the possibility of incarceration. Well too bad. By trying to expose your country’s shortcomings to the world in this manner, you are only exposing yourselves for the traitors and enemies of the State that you are. Loyal citizens of Antigua and Dominica, unmask them and mark their faces well.

  3. Right now, the Dominica prison is the best place for him, until he is sent back to India. Believe me, that rich boy will want to go home to India after one hour in that place. Prison is not a country club, and shouldn’t be. He’ll be safe there until he gets on that flight home to Indiza.

  4. Whether Choksi is sent back to India or Antigua is not my primary concern, although he is an Antiguan and Barbudan citizen and by right should be sent back to Antigua. On his return to Antigua the government can then deal with his extradition to India. My primary concern is the pace at which justice is dispensed in these countries. From all the surrounding facts and circumstances Choksi did not enter Dominica on his own volition. The facts clearly point to an abduction despite the narratives that Gaston Browne has indicated. That being the case I cannot understand why the Courts in Dominica are dragging this matter out with the frivolous charge of illegal entry into Dominica by Choksi.

    • Wait have you not heard its his lawyers who asked the court for more time? The prosecutors made clear they were ready seems choksi is having some mental issues

  5. Good! Maybe he will go vegan while in prison and give his heart a break from having to pump blood around such a fatty, obese body.

  6. World dictator traitor tyrant liar Gaston Browne, Ray John all involved with this Chocksi debacle.

    Why are the murderers of Nigel Christian still walking around freely?He found out the truth about the “forged” signatures at the Port and was executed for that. Gaston, Telemaque know what went on and yet no one has been arrested for his murder. Our nation has become a criminal state.

    • I really think you need some professional help. The unhealthy obsession with Gaston Browne may be very unhealthy for you. Your objectivity or lack thereof is astonishing. I honestly believe that it’s some personal issues you have with the PM. Maybe he rejected you some eons ago or something. Please get a life or some help.

  7. The man from grand bay is in that same deplorable prison in Dominica awaiting possible extradition to the USA. Why should Choksi be treated differently? Hope his hospital bill is paid up. Choksi and his team of lawyers continue to play our legal system like a fiddle.

  8. That is exactly where world dictator traitor tyrant liar Gaston Browned and his crew of leeches all belong.

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