Steven Watt, senior staff attorney at the United States-based human rights group America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has hit back at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade for what can be described as dereliction of duty after it issued a statement on the five fishermen who have claimed that they were detained at sea by the US Coast Guard for 32 days in inhumane conditions.

Last Friday, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kamina Johnson Smith told the Senate that there was no record of any complaint of mistreatment lodged with the Jamaica Government by the men after they were arrested by US authorities in 2017 or upon their deportation in 2018.(Jamaica Gleaner)…[+]