INDECOM asked to probe alleged illegal search by police of businessman’s house

The Independent Commission of Investigations has been asked to probe the circumstances under which the police searched a businessman's house in Westmoreland during his absence and allegedly removed large sums of money.

Shawn Smith, chief executive officer of Car Junction Jamaica Limited in Three Rivers, Westmoreland, is contending that his house in the Albany Housing Scheme in the parish was searched by the police on Saturday, April 30.

He said he was not at home and neighbours called him to report a case of breaking and entering as they saw signs of illegal entry. 

He said he went home immediately and saw signs of a break-in as the door to his house was kicked in.

On entering, he said he saw the house ransacked and that US$59,500 and $J2.5 million were missing from a chest of drawers.

He said he later discovered that it was not criminals who robbed him but it was the police who had forcibly entered his house.

He complained that calls to the Savanna-la-Mar Police Station in Westmoreland to investigate the matter and conduct a search in his presence have been ignored.

Attorney-at-law Bert Samuels, who is representing Smith, sent a letter on Monday to INDECOM boss Hugh Faulkner asking him to investigate the matter.

“We are of the view that this matter warrants your investigation as the oversight body to investigate the action of the security forces,” Samuels stated in the letter.

Samuels pointed out in the letter that the Court of Appeal, in the case of Superintendent Harry Daley (now retired), had frowned on searches being carried out by the police without the occupant of the house or a Justice of the Peace being present.

- Barbara Gayle

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