Jamal Shyne Barrow, now known as Moses Michael Levy is still detained
at a detention facility in New York State as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Department decide whether he will be deported to Belize. Shyne’s lawyers
are fighting deportation – and today his father, Prime Minister Dean Barrow
told us that he has asked the governor of New York for special consideration
on his eldest son’s behalf.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Father of Shyne
“Obviously all sorts of things are happening in the States and it
is clear a move is afoot to deport him and it is also clear that he is seeking
to resist that but I am sure where the legal processes are at this juncture.”
Jules Vasquez,
“Are you able to call in any favours from any influential legislators
or persons you may know, the President?”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“I have written a letter to the Governor of the State of New York,
Charles Overture, the Harvard Professor who was representing Shyne at the time
had asked that I do this. Well before that I had written a first letter to the
Governor when at the time Jamal Shyne was interested in repatriation in serving
the rest of his sentence here. That never went anywhere perhaps just as well
because now it is clear that he wants to stay in the States to continue his
career. So I put in terms of a petition for a kind of pardon that would allow
him to stay. I have not had a response, I have spoken to people close to the
Governor and I have been assured that the letter was received and that it was
in fact under active consideration but I can’t say that am able to call
in any favours such that would guarantee that he is able to remain in the States.”
According to Shyne’s Uncle Michael Finnegan, the lawyers have
told the family that by next week, more will be known about the 30 year old’s
future. Shyne served eight and a half years of a 10 year sentence for a shooting
that happened in a New York Nightclub in 1999.