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Namibia: Jamaican Wins Court Order, But Remains in Custody
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The Namibian (Windhoek)
28 November 2007
Posted to the web 28 November 2007
Denver Isaacs
Windhoek
The High Court yesterday granted an interim order in favour of Jamaican citizen Norman Escoffery, who has spent 19 months in prison without being charged or convicted of a criminal offence.
The 67-year-old Escoffery was arrested in May last year, after the Windhoek Country Club and Casino filed a civil case against him for a N$460 000 bill he ran up during almost a year's stay there.
The Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) last week filed an urgent application in the High Court to argue for Escoffery's release, on the grounds that his arrest and detention were unconstitutional and thus invalid. Acting Judge Theo Frank postponed the hearing until yesterday because lawyers for the Country Club and the Windhoek Central Prison as second respondent were not in court.
However, Escoffery's hopes of a quick release were shattered on Friday, after the Country Club laid a criminal charge of fraud, with an alternative charge of theft, against him for the money he owes them. During his first court appearance on these charges on Friday morning, that case was postponed until February 18 2008 for further investigation. He was ordered to remain in custody until then. When the LAC returned to the High Court yesterday, its request for the court to declare Escoffery's arrest unconstitutional had changed to refer only to the period between the conclusion of the civil case against him (on June 6 2006), and his latest arrest on Friday.
There was no objection from either the Country Club or the Windhoek Central Prison's legal teams to the interim order granted yesterday. The case is set to return to the High Court on January 25 2008, when the two teams will be allowed to object to the granting of a final order. Should the court grant Escoffery this final order, which would declare that he had been held unlawfully, the Jamaican has indicated his intent to take legal action against the Country Club for his imprisonment.
Since his arrest on Friday, Escoffery was moved from the juvenile section of the prison to an adult cell. After a year and a half in prison, he has now officially spent only six days of that time as a trial-awaiting prisoner. The Country Club, according to documents submitted to court during the civil case, had initially decided to take legal steps against Escoffery because of his failure to settle his debt. Because he is a foreign national, the only way the court could gain jurisdiction over him was to either attach his property in Namibia, or order his arrest pending the resolution of the case.
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The hotel was granted a default judgement in this civil case in June 2006, which is when the LAC contests that Escoffery should have been lawfully released.
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