Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith told the Senate on Friday that the United States has issued a formal apology to the Jamaican State.
The apology comes for the recent handling of a matter involving four Jamaican fishermen.
The crew aboard now destroyed, state of the art-tug boat Lady Lawla were detained by US Coast Guards after their vessel was intercepted in October 2020.
The men were detained and their vessel destroyed at sea on suspicion of drug trafficking, but a Florida court found no basis on which to charge or prosecute the men.
Their continued detention and subsequent struggles despite being freed has sparked a raging debate about the government’s role in protecting the rights of its citizens under the ship-rider agreement.
CVM Live’s Senior Reporter Neika Lewis has this latest development:
