Public Defender to seek compensation for beaten prisoners By Denise Clarke, Staff Reporter WESTERN BUREAU: The office of the Public Defender is probing the issue of compensation for more than 300 prisoners who were injured during a two-day disturbance at the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre in May last year. The prisoners, some of whom were severely beaten during clashes with warders and soldiers between May 21-23, may be due compensation if the state is found liable for their injuries, said Public Defender Howard Hamilton Q.C. "In some cases where the state is found liable, then we will seek compensation for these persons," Mr. Hamilton told The Sunday Gleaner last week. Where compensation is due, Mr. Hamilton said, the investigation will also determine the level of compensation depending on the individual case. He added that the matter is not necessarily one for the courts, explaining that the state can reach an agreement with those inmates to whom it is found liable. It's a painstaking process," he said. "For those who were injured we have to determine who were the more serious and...where there is no justification for (the beating)." The type of compensation would depend on the particular case/incident, and personal information about the inmate, Mr. Hamilton said. He also explained that his office was not rejecting the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into the beatings, which found that the absence of hundreds of experienced warders who were interdicted in January 2000, and the cramped and deplorable conditions in the prison, contributed to the disturbance. "The inquiry did find that some of the injuries, although there was provocation in some instances, there were some in which there was liability," Mr. Hamilton said. The report of the commission of inquiry, which was released in April, found the testimony by inmates, that shots were fired into their cells, to be accurate, and that they were beaten with plaited electric cord. One inmate, serving time for fraud, lost an eye after being hit with a plaited cord. Although the former prison doctor Raymoth Notice, who broke the news of the prison beatings, has maintained that at least 300 prisoners were injured, the report stated that only 150 inmates received injuries.
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