By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE two men, who were arrested by police last week in connection with a song that makes negative comments about Prime Minister Perry Christie and his family, have been released from custody and plan to sue the government, The Tribune has learned.

In an exclusive interview with The Tribune, Navardo Saunders said he was arrested on Thursday afternoon and flown to New Providence from Grand Bahama after officers accused him of “threatening the prime minister” and attempting to “destabilise the government.”

Mr Saunders said after being held for 36 hours and questioned by officers from the Cyber Crimes Unit, he was released without being charged.

He said he believes he was “targeted” and “victimised” because he frequently speaks out against the government on social media for “neglecting Grand Bahama.”

The other man, who also spoke with The Tribune, did not want to be named but confirmed that he was arrested in connection with the song and was also released without being charged. Both men maintain their innocence.

Chief Superintendent Clayton Fernander, officer-in-charge of the Central Detective Unit, said the two men who were in police custody were released on Friday evening “pending further investigations.”

“On Thursday, I got a call from my pastor’s wife who told me that police were looking for me in connection with some threats I allegedly made against the prime minister,” Mr Saunders said. “I was shocked and lost because I knew I did not do anything.

“After that the police in Grand Bahama contacted me and said, ‘Come to the station or we are coming to get you.’ When I went there the officer-in-charge told me they knew I made the song and wrote the song and that it came from my computer because they tracked it to my IP address or something like that,” he said.

“I told them I had no knowledge of what they were talking about and the next thing I knew, they put me in a cell and then on a plane to New Providence to speak with someone from the Central Detective Unit’s Cyber Crimes Division. I slept in a cell at Cable Beach police station that night and they took me to CDU in the morning where they put me in another cell for about two hours until a detective came to interview me.

“The detective kept saying they knew I wrote the song and the police are giving me a chance to confess, but I kept saying that it wasn’t me,” he said. “After a while, the detective said the voice on the song didn’t sound like me but he knew I knew who the guy was. I told him I didn’t but he said he got information from Freeport that I was behind the song. They took my laptop and my cell phone and found nothing.

“So they let me go around 4pm but not before telling me that I need to go find out who was behind the song. They didn’t even pay for me to go back to Freeport, they just let me go and I had to find my own way back.”

Mr Saunders said he believes he was targeted because of the advocacy work that he does in Freeport and he believes this was the government’s way of “sending me a message.

“They called me an enemy of the state. I was targeted and victimised. They didn’t charge me with anything, they just want me to stand down,” he said.

“They knew I had nothing to do with the song, I didn’t even hear it until they played it for me while in custody. They called me an enemy of the state and told me if I lay low nothing like this would have happened. They tried to abuse me and put fear in me, but I am a free man today and I will make sure this does not happen to anyone else,” he said.

Mr Saunders said he is currently looking for a lawyer and plans to sue “and make the government accountable.”

On Friday, Chief Supt Fernander said the matter is under active investigation and “the chips will fall as they may” as the investigations progress.

The Free National Movement and the Democratic National Alliance have both condemned the song.