Gildarie charged for
violating 3-year ban
PHILIPSBURG--Former National newspaper editor Leonard Gildarie has been charged with failing to comply with an official order issued last year that banned him from returning to St. Maarten within three years.
Prosecutor Johan de Vrieze told The Daily Herald Tuesday that when people banned from returning to the island for specified periods violated such bans the practice of simply picking them up and sending them away was no longer in effect.
“It’s not up to you, so you can’t just say, ‘Here is my ticket. You win, so send me back.’ It’s up to us,” De Vrieze said.
Noting that Gildarie had been barred for three years by order of the Lt. Governor and that he had violated that order by returning before the three years had expired, De Vrieze stressed that under the Criminal Code of the Netherlands Antilles it was a crime to return to an island from which you had been banned within the period of the ban.
Anyone found guilty of this criminal offence, he added, is liable to the maximum punishment of three months in prison.
He referred to the case of a woman from Luxemburg who had been detained and tried earlier this year for violating an order banning her from returning to St. Maarten within a specified time.
He said she had been given a two-month suspended sentence by the Court of First Instance plus two years’ probation with a special condition that she must stay away from St. Maarten for two years.
“If she returns within that two-year period then we will lock her up for the two months and deport her again,” said De Vrieze.
He also explained that under the law, when a foreigner who had no ties to the island violated the law, the Prosecutor’s Office was within its rights to keep that person in detention pending his or her trial.
He said Gildarie, who has been in detention since July 4, would probably be taken before a Judge on July 19.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the police, he added, must ensure that the orders of the government are strictly adhered to and people must be made aware that if they violate the law on their expulsion “we will not simply put them back on a plane because they can purchase a ticket.”
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