Public Defender Howard Hamilton said Monday that he plans to file a suit on behalf of the estates of several prisoners during the 1997 prison riots.
Speaking recently with The Gleaner, Mr. Hamilton said his office has secured $30 million in out-of-court settlements for 177 complainants since 1998 and that he is hoping to take action early next year regarding several prisoners who died in the riots.
He said the process of filing a suit was taking time because of a variety of reasons, including the need to get letters of administration, which are needed in cases where persons die without leaving a will.
He said the office has not decided whether to "judge each case on its merit or file a class action suit."
In 1997, Lieutenant Colonel John Prescod, then Commissioner of Corrections, suggested that condoms be distributed in the prisons as a means of stopping the spread of HIV. The suggestion sparked a riot that claimed the lives of 16 prisoners, some of whom were accused of being homosexuals.
SUGGESTIONS
Colonel Prescod's suggestion also earned the wrath of the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU), which represents the prison warders. Warders had interpreted the suggestion as an accusation that they were homosexual.
Mr. Hamilton's office said in a release that the $30 million ranged from "compensation for police excesses, incorrect calculations and unreasonable delay in payment of pensions and National Insurance scheme claims, riot compensation, National Housing Trust and Income tax refunds, assistance with burials in deaths at the hands of the security forces, negligence at the hands of the medical services, unlawful detention of motor vehicles and assaults on prisoners by prison warders."
