Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

"What's in a name?" William Shakespeare once asked.

It's a provocative question, especially if you have to grapple with a case of mistaken identity like Linden Winston Graham. He says for four years, he has been fighting to get the United States justice system to accept that he is not a Jamaican criminal, who they think he is, but rather a U.S. citizen.

After months of being mum on the matter, Leighton Wilson, director of immigration services, last week confirmed that Graham is not a Jamaican.

"We have verified that he is not a Jamaican but we cannot verify his nationality. We have done our check and we are satisfied that he is not a Jamaican." Mr. Wilson told The Sunday Gleaner.

He further added that "the matter has been refereed to the diplomatic level to be dealt with."

The Sunday Gleaner has been unable to ascertain from Wilson a timetable as to when Graham will be sent back to the United States. Similarly, we were unable to get him to say which procedural breaches had occured, resulting in Graham being accepted as a Jamaican.

But Graham had no problem sharing his story.

Longs to be with family

Incarcerated in 1997 for shooting a man in the back, who he said had slapped him in the face in presence of his daughter, Graham is longing for the day when he will be reunited with his family.

He is being held in a Jamaican jail because he was deported here by U.S. officials who, seemingly, has mistaken his identity for someone else.

It is Sunday, another visiting day for prisoners at the Central Kingston police lock-up. Visitors queue outside the jail's waiting area carrying food, clothes and toiletries for many of the 141 prisoners. Graham need not listen for his name. No one has ever visited him at the lock-up. He is practically lost in the system; not even his family members know his whereabouts, he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

"I really want to see them again," he says while gently moving his head from side to side. The last time he saw his youngest child, who he calls D.J., the child was five years old. He is now 14. "Nobody knows I am here and I had made my kids a promise that I would see them soon," Graham tells The Sunday Gleaner from the Central lock-up.

With a pensive look on his face, the well-built man who wears his greying hair in a pony tail, recounts what he says was his earlier life.

"I was born in Christianstead, St. Croix. My mother died in childbirth when I was six years old ... I had two sisters and some Indian women came and get them afterwards," he says.

Graham said he lived with his father until age 19 before moving to the United States of America in 1979 with the help ofdrug dealers, for whom he would later work.

In the U.S.A., Graham says he sold drugs for four years. During this time, he was nabbed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which used him as bait to get his boss. One night while in his sleep, Graham claims, he was beaten and left to die by some of his boss's other employees. But the FBI was not going to leave him to die and they placed him in a witness protection programme and used him to get the big fish.

"I testified against my boss and he was sent to federal prison. I went to live in L.A. (Los Angeles) under the witness protection programme," Mr. Graham says. In L.A., Graham says he started a new life, including a family, and even learnt welding as a trade before moving back to Las Vegas in 1989.

But one day, while walking with his daughter, he got into an argument with a man, who he said slapped him across the face with a gun. "You see, you can try anything, but do not slap me. He did that and I shot him. He did not die, but I shot him in the back and then called the police," recounts Graham.

SENTENCED

On April 14, 1996, he was jailed for the crime and he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison in February 1997.

Now, 10 years after his incar- ceration, Graham says neither his wife nor his kids are aware of his whereabouts. His wife, who he says is Mexican- American, has broken off the relationship, and two of his three children are adults and the other a teenager.

"I ain't going to get hooked up back with her but I have to see my kids.

"Nobody knows I am here. The last time I spoke to my kids was in 2002. I promised them that I was going to see them in 2003. I called them and told them 'I am coming out soon.' They asked me when and I told them 'Surprise' ... Now this is the surprise I get. They (are) saying I am Jamaican and I ain't no Jamaica," Graham says as his voice cracked.

Graham arrived from the United States on July 3, 2006, on a chartered flight. He says that despite telling U.S authorities that they had got the wrong man, he was never interviewed by a Jamaican consulate about his nationality.

"I never sign any travel documents. I never got any picture taken for any travel documents. I never speak to a Jamaican consulate but yet I obtain a passport."

Since his arrival in the island, Graham has been housed at the Kingston Central jail. He became sick on one occasion and had to be admitted to the Kingston Public Hospital. "I take high blood pressure medication. I nearly die in here. I spend six days in the hospital. My lungs closed up on me due to the heat inside the building," he relates.

"It is cruel in a jail that you are not use to. It is hot in here. I hate the nights in Jamaican jail. Every time it comes to evening, I get depressed because the nights in Jamaican jail are worse than hell," laments Graham, who says he will be taking legal action against the Jamaican Government for its role in his misfortune.