The trial of 6 American tourists in jailed Antigua continues this week, and testimony on both sides is getting more detailed.
Today, one of the jailed cruisers admitted to biting one of the Antiguan officials, and added that she only did so since she didn’t know the plain-clothed person was an officer and she thought she was killing her sister.
The prosecutor asked her about the biting, since earlier in the week the officer testified the tourist was acting like “an aggressive pit bull,” during the altercation.
One of the tourists testimony of the events has changed since her original statement given to police – namely the part about her injuries. Her response was, “Maybe I forgot.”
Maybe? It sounds like she isn’t sure – and responses like that and inconsistencies in testimony certainly aren’t helping the tourists’ case.
We suspect this was a case of everyone acting inappropriately – from the cabbie that demanded double payment, to the cruisers acting aggressively, to the local authorities creating an unprofessional and confusing image of apprehending someone while in plain clothes.
The discussion is heating up on one of the local paper’s websites — here are some of the comments.
“These tourists are wrong, plain and simple, they just think they can come in here and disrespect us and get away with it but nothing tal so. Just look how this woman testimony differs from what she gave the police, she is guilty and so are the others. Fine them something good and send them back where they came from. Americans always think they better than anyone else but they got another guess coming. As for the police, they need to go back training school and brush up on their skills or at least know how to call for backup. This whole thing is just a scam by the Americans to make Antigua look bad and tarnish what we have worked our whole lives to build up.”
Here is one person’s response:
No, the tourists are not wrong, plain and simple. Send them back where they came from!!! hmmm. You obviously do not know or understand where YOU are from, you obviously don’t know the struggles black people around the world have had to endure so you continue to stay on your tiny island with your tiny mind and your tiny thinking and believe that without the American dollar, euro, yen or whatever you can survive. You continue to sit there and think that its about them and us because you obviously do not have the intelligence to know that we need to work on both sides to try and implement new procedures and policies and collaborate with each other to see how we can go forward because it is not just the tourists or the taxi driver or the courts its EVERYBODY IN ANTIGUA & BARBUDA who is affected, but then your tiny mind can’t work that out, can it?
What do you think?
1
Carnival’s decision to move their port of call to St Maatreen makes perfect sence. Over the last ten years, Antigua has become more violent, dirtier, and more corrupt. Even by Caribbean standards. St Maarten is a much better choice of ports.
I would think the recent tourist Murders, The Allen Stanford fraud and the rise in crime, litter, predatory taxis and vendors are far more likely reasons for Carnival’s adjustment to it’s itinerary than the taxi driver’s recent kidnapping of the six tourists from Brooklyn.