By Hilbert Haar
Think about this a bit. The court in Philipsburg decided against sending the suspects in the Pompeii-investigation to prison because, according to local reports, “the insufficient condition of the detention facilities in St. Maarten.”
So the court went for conditional prison sentences against brothel owner Toochie Meyers and his co-defendants and fines ranging from 250,000 to 1 million guilders.
I don’t wish prison time on anyone and I think it is always a good idea to at least respect rulings issued by the independent judge. That does not mean however that I have to understand such rulings – and this is certainly one of them.
The countries in the kingdom have a cooperation agreement about detention capacity. This is why, after Hurricane Irma, a bunch of convicts was shipped to the Netherlands where they are currently still serving their time.
The court’s argument, that it is “uncertain whether an imposed unconditional prison sentence would be enforced or how long it would take before this would be possible,” does not hold water very well. The judge could have ruled on Wednesday that the suspects get an unconditional sentence and that they have to serve their time in the Netherlands. Problem solved. Right?
Ah, one of my friends noted, it is expensive to detain local convicts in the Netherlands and that is correct. Every day a St. Maarten convict enjoys a stay in a Dutch prison comes with a price tag of €260 (that’s $288.60 or 516.90 Antillean guilders).
But why would that be a reason not to do this? The court imposed a fine of a million guilders on Meyers, a fine of 500,000 on a second defendant and 250,000 guilders on a third person.
A million guilders equals €503,396. Grab a calculator and figure out how long you could spend in a Dutch prison for that money; it comes to 1,935 days – that’s five years and almost four months.
The suspended sentences handed down by the court are 3, 2 and 1 year respectively, so the fines the court imposed are more than enough to cover the cost of incarceration elsewhere in the kingdom.
So what is the message we are getting from this court ruling? In my mind it is the wrong one.
Detention capacity – or the lack of it – should not govern rulings in criminal investigations. It is the responsibility of the government to make sure that the prison is up to standards and that there is enough space to accommodate local criminals.
The government has dragged its feet like forever with a solution for the Pointe Blanche prison and this court ruling will hardly encourage it to finally do something – just in case one of their own gets in trouble with the law.
In the sick bay on the hill, suspended Member of Parliament Theo Heyliger must be laughing all the way to the bank – and wondering why the hell he is still locked up.
