Although it was never heard in court, a writ of habeas corpus was filed by an attorney representing three of the five people arrested in connection with a November mini-mart robbery on Little Cayman seeking their immediate release from custody.
All five men arrested in connection with the Nov. 26 robbery were released in early December without the need for a court hearing.
A writ of habeas corpus is a court order that requires a person under arrest to be brought before a court on the principle that their detention lacks sufficient evidence to support it. Habeas applications have historically been used to protect individual freedoms against arbitrary state action in criminal cases.
The writ, filed with the Grand Court on Nov. 29, was on behalf of all five men arrested in connection with the Little Cayman robbery. The Caymanian Compass is not naming the men because they had not been charged in connection with the robbery at press time, but their names appear in the court document.
The attorney who filed the writ, James Stenning, declined to discuss the reasons he believed his clients were being unlawfully held. He acknowledged that writs of Habeas Corpus were and “should be” unusual in the Cayman Islands courts.
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service has identified the men as Caymanian nationals, ages 20, 27, 27, 29 and 40.
Robbers using two watercraft committed a store robbery on Little Cayman during the afternoon of Nov. 26. Around 1.10 p.m., police received a report that five men entered the Mini Mart in Blossom Village, Little Cayman. Police said “a number of the men” were armed with what appeared to be firearms.
A bank next door to the mini mart was left alone by the robbers, but it was closed for business that day. The Little Cayman branch of the Cayman National Bank is open only on Mondays and Thursdays.
The men were arrested about 25 miles off the coast of Grand Cayman that afternoon by police marine officers after their boat was spotted by the RCIPS helicopter team.
Police did not state whether any firearms were recovered in the watercraft.
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