By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

DESPITE a belief from immigration officials that a missing Cuban woman drowned at sea after the boat she was on capsized, a relative of the migrant says the family has reason to believe she is still alive and being held at a local immigration facility.

Adriana Maria Caro, 22, was said to have been onboard a Cuban vessel that was intercepted by Cuban, Bahamian, Turks Island and US Coast Guard officials in early March.

According to court documents, for some “unknown reason” there was an accident on Cay Sal Bank and the boat exploded and sank. It has been said that some 15 to 20 people died in the incident.

Immigration officials believe Mrs Caro was one of the victims who died in the incident.

However, family members have pushed back against this assertion.

In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, Illiana Perez, Mrs Caro’s cousin and adopted mother, claimed there were two women held at the facility who saw her at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre (CRDC) and are willing to testify to that fact.

The relative also claimed her cousin’s whereabouts were confirmed by a nurse who she said spoke to her shortly after the incident.

However, in an affidavit filed this week, officer-in-charge of the CRDC Peter Joseph said he believed Mrs Caro died along with the others onboard the ill-fated vessel.

He explained that Mrs Caro was mistakenly identified for another female detainee who was in custody in relation to a separate matter and added when officials tried to correct the error, their explanations were not accepted.

“The applicant was not being detained at the detention centre and was never in the detention centre custody...I verily believe that the applicant was one of the persons that perished on board the vessel,” the affidavit said.

Still, the relative insisted yesterday: “We know she’s alive because there’s two witnesses that saw her and was there with her…Two weeks after the accident, because I have called every day and I would call Princess Margaret Hospital and I got lucky that the nurse would answer the phone two weeks after the accident.

“She was nice enough and I was on the phone over two hours with the hospital and the nurse told me and I could hear she was going through the list of papers with the people that had come in and she went all the way to the day after the accident and she told me very nicely ‘your daughter was here.’”

Ms Perez spoke after a virtual hearing on the matter held before Justice Bernard Turner was adjourned yesterday.

Last month, Justice Turner granted the attorneys representing Mrs Caro leave to issue a writ of habeas corpus against Immigration Minister Elsworth Johnson, Immigration Director Clarence Russell and Mr Joseph, who are the respondents in the matter.

The hearing continued yesterday but was adjourned after Justice Turner gave the attorneys until June 21 to file additional evidence needed to proceed with the case.

This came after Fred Smith, QC, who represents Mrs Caro, took issue with the affidavit filed by Mr Joseph, noting that most of its content to be hearsay and not based on actual experience.

He also asked for a return to be filed by Mr Johnson and Mr Russell, as they too have been listed as respondents and have been ordered to prove that they acted lawfully when they allegedly detained Mrs Caro.

In response, Raquel Whyms, who represents the respondents, said she would have them filed in two weeks.

Speaking after yesterday’s proceedings, Ms Perez said the family is anxious for the case to continue so they can get the answers that they are desperately searching for. She also said they fear for her life.

“I am more than anxious,” she told this newspaper. “. . .We want it to be solved and I fear for her. My daughter has a hot body, she’s a hot mama and there is a black market for prostitution in the Bahamas and that is my fear.”

The matter is expected to resume on June 24 at 10 am.