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AT LEAST five men deported from Britain to Jamaica have been murdered there in the space of a year.
The report by the Guardian sparked fresh concern from Labour yesterday over “flawed” deportations in the wake of the government’s Windrush scandal.
Owen Clarke, 62, was fatally shot on February 23. He was a founder of the British Link-Up Crew, a business promoting dancehall reggae parties in Britain and Jamaica.
He was sentenced in 2004 to 13 years in prison for producing, possessing and supplying crack cocaine.
Alphonso Harriott, 56, known as Oney British and reportedly part of the same crew as Mr Clarke, was murdered on March 29.
Dewayne Robinson, 37, was murdered on March 4 last year. Known as “Little Wicked,” he was wanted for the murder of a woman in Jamaica on February 17 2014, according to the Jamaica Gleaner.
Grocery-shop owner Paul Mitchell, 50, was stabbed to death in his bed on December 31 by unknown assailants who also robbed him of a large amount of cash, the Gleaner reported.
Shopkeeper Hugh Bennett, 48, also died in a stabbing at his home on the same night in similar circumstances.
Labour’s shadow immigration minister Afzal Khan said: “These mass deportations to Jamaica and other destinations should end.
“There has long been a widespread concern that due process was not followed in many of these cases. But these murders show that the entire process is fatally flawed.”
Public law solicitor Naga Kandiah, of MTC & Co, said that any crimes committed by potential deportees cannot negate the government’s human rights obligation to prevent a threat to life.
The deaths have increased pressure on the Home Office to justify its resumption of deportation charter flights to Jamaica in February, following their suspension in the wake of the Windrush scandal.