St George. Grenada.
A judge has ruled that there should be a corner's inquest before a criminal case can proceed against five Grenadian police officers accused of manslaughter in the high-profile beating death of a Canadian visitor.
The officers, who were suspended with half pay after the December 2011 incident, will return to work with the Royal Grenada Police Force and be reimbursed for their lost salaries, said Anselm Clouden, a lawyer for one of them.
“They are no longer charged with anything until the coroner can inquire into the proper cause of death,” Clouden told the media.
Oscar Bartholomew, 39, was allegedly beaten into a fatal coma by the five officers after he hugged a female plainclothes officer he’d mistaken for a friend, his relatives said. The Toronto resident was in his native country to visit family for Christmas.
According to Grenadian media reports, the officer yelled “rape” when she was hugged by Bartholomew, and the other officers jumped him. He died 24 hours later in a prison cell, the Star reported.
Last week, the High Court accepted the defence’s argument the coroner was legally bound to hold an inquest before a trial could proceed, because Bartholomew died in a public building, said Clouden.
Derick Sylvester, the lawyer representing Bartholomew’s family, called the development a “short-term victory” for the accused officers, arguing that a five-member jury at a coroner’s inquest could ultimately recommend more serious charges than manslaughter.
According to Sylvester, the court’s decision sets a “dangerous precedent,” by allowing the Coroner’s Act — which mandates an inquiry for all deaths that occur in a public building, like a prison — to supersede the authority of the district prosecutor, who laid the charges in Bartholomew’s case.
