Two suspects reportedly
held in gay-bashing probe
St. Maarten--Police have arrested two suspects believed to have participated in the beating of United States tourists Richard Jefferson and his friend Ryan Smith on April 6, according to reliable reports.
However, while St. Maarten police spokesman Inspector Johan “Janchi” Leonard said all questions about the so-called gay-bashing crime should be put to the St. Maarten Chief Prosecutor Taco Stein, Stein would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
First reports that two men had been arrested Thursday in connection with the incident reached The Daily Herald Friday night. Dutch press agency ANP reported over the weekend that two arrests had been made at Bamboo Bernie’s and that a third suspect, apparently the main suspect, was still at large.
“I say to you as I said to all other reporters, I cannot deny nor confirm the arrests,” Stein told this newspaper Monday. He said the investigation was “very touchy” and “delicate” and that he would give a statement “as soon as this is possible.”
According to the ANP report, the two suspects are from French St. Martin and were held on Thursday evening when the police were conducting an investigation at Bamboo Bernie’s. They both showed up at the bar and were immediately arrested.
The report also mentioned that all of the suspects originated from the French side of the island. Stein was quoted saying that the fact that the island “is divided in two territories makes it sometimes more difficult to conduct certain investigations.”
Stein and Jefferson held a press conference at the VIP room of Princess Juliana International Airport on Jefferson’s arrival on Friday, April 21. During that press conference Jefferson said Smith was still hospitalised and unable to speak properly. He assured reporters that while he might simply have been beaten by the suspects because they felt like doing so, Smith was certainly a victim of “gay bashing.”
He explained that he had not been inside Bamboo Bernie’s when the suspects reportedly became verbally abusive to Smith, who was hugging his “boyfriend” at the time. It was when he walked over to where Smith was being beaten, near Sunset Beach Bar at Maho which at the time was closed, and tried to intervene that he was clobbered over the head with a wheel wrench.
Stein said the investigation was progressing smoothly and stated that it appeared that the suspects simply had been out to harm “someone.” Stein said they had managed to speak to a security guard of Bamboo Bernie’s who had thrown the suspects out of the establishment.
He said the guard had given a good account of what had happened inside the club and a description of the perpetrators, but no one had come forward with the names and addresses of the suspects up until then.
St Maarten vacation rental
