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Trump donor under fire at London coroner's court

AN INQUEST into one of the most disturbing deaths at a British detention centre resumed briefly today.

Lawyers for the dead man’s family continued to demand disclosure from a US private security company that donates to Donald Trump.

Prince Kwabena Fosu, a 31-year-old Ghanaian, died at Harmondsworth immigration removal centre, Middlesex, in 2012 when it was run by the pro-Trump GEO Group.

It is alleged that Mr Fosu was held in solitary confinement for six days in unsanitary conditions, without any clothing, bedding or a mattress. He went into sickle cell crisis and died on the floor of his cell.

His inquest was opened at west London coroner’s court, but then adjourned for years while the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) investigated.

In 2017 the CPS announced it was bringing criminal charges against the GEO Group UK Ltd, but then reversed this decision in 2018 — on the sixth anniversary of Mr Fosu’s death.

With criminal charges dropped, the case then returned to the coronial system, where coroner Chinyere Inyama held a pre-inquest review today.

The family were represented by Nick Armstrong from Matrix Chambers and Kate Maynard of Hickman & Rose solicitors, who battled for disclosure of official records about Mr Fosu’s death.

Further preliminary hearings are planned for December 3 and January 7.

The full inquest is listed provisionally for February 3 to March 6, 2020, and is expected to be one of the most high-profile inquests into the Home Office’s hostile environment policy.

It will also take on an international dimension because the GEO Group’s US parent company has reportedly donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

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