A Jamaican man identified as Leon Haughton was detained for almost three months in the United States after bringing in bottles of honey from the Caribbean island that customs agents mistakenly believed to be liquid methamphetamine.
Haughton’s long ordeal began on December 29th 2018 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport when customs agents had a dog sniff his bags. Inside they found three bottles duly labelled as honey that Haughton, a 45-year-old father of three, uses to sweeten his tea.
According to the charging document, the agents suspected him of transporting liquid methamphetamine, and placed him in detention. Laboratory results from Maryland took more than two weeks to arrive: they were negative. Haughton thought that was the end of it. He was wrong.
The bottles were sent to a second laboratory in Georgia after the first was judged to be insufficiently equipped to analyze the liquids. Although he had a green card granting him legal residence in the United States, Haughton’s arrest set in motion a detention process with the US immigration service.
His lawyer had enormous difficulty contacting immigration authorities and for good reason. The US government had been partially shut down as a result of a budget impasse between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his demand for funding to build a wall on the border with Mexico.
The tests in Georgia, meanwhile, finally confirmed that Haughton was indeed transporting honey. He was freed on March 21, 82 days after he returned from vacation. Unable to work for three months and far from his children, Haughton lost his two jobs as a cleaner and construction worker. “They messed up my life,” he told the Post, looking back on a bitter ordeal that even honey will be unable to sweeten.
Source: Washington Post
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@AKWASI, PLEASE DON'T COMPARE THE SITUATION BACK HOME TO THOSE OUTSIDE GHANA. OF COURSE MANY ARE INCARCERATED YEARS ON END WITHOUT REDRESS TO BASIC PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN DECENCY AND WHY IS IT THAT?. ALL BECAUSE OUR SO CALLED LEADERS LACK WISDOM AND VISION TO GOVERN THAT'S WHY OUR WHOLE SYSTEM IS IN A MESS.YOU GO TO EUROPE AND COMMIT THE SAME BASIC CRIME WITH THE WHITE MAN AND SEE THE PUNISHMENT WHICH WILL BE RENDERED TO YOU. THE BLACK MAN WILL RECEIVE TWICE THE JAIL TERM FOR THE SAME CRIME WITH THE WHITE MAN.THIS IS IN UK,EUROPE,AMERICA, EVERYWHERE THE BLACK MAN FACE IS SHOWN HE IS NOT WELCOME. DON'T BE DECEIVED.
ALL THIS HAPPENS BECAUSE EVERYDAY WE DO BLACK STAR LINES IN FRONT OF THEIR EMBASSIES LOOKING FOR VISA TO SURVIVE.
@Jgee & Ranas: in Ghana, people are detained for years without trial, and for false accusations. Is there any white man in our judicial system? Until we stop labelling every bad human behaviour as race-related, the black man will never take responsibility for his own life and make things better for himself. If every bad thing is caused by my 'race', then the solution is automatically out of my reach because I can't change my colour therefore I sit back. But if every bad thing is due to natural injustice in our world, that, I can fight to overcome. I always feel the black man is too quick to play the race game...but if you look at ourselves, on our own land, in our own villages, we do worse to ourselves (not to say I don't sympathise with the Jamaincan man).
They have done him a great favour. He'll probably get more than 3years pay if he files suit
THE WORLD OF THE WHITE MAN IS NUTS OVER THE BLACK SKIN.THEY WILL DO EVERYTHING TO DEGRADE,AND HUMILIATE US AND THEIR POLICE GIVEN THE POWER TO ELIMINATE US AND OUR STUPIDDDD AND FOOLISHHHH SO CALLED LEADERS AS SOON AS THEY COME TO POWER WANT TO DRESS LIKE THEM AND HOP TO ONE CAPITAL AFTER ANOTHER BEGGING FOR ALMS ONLY TO BE MOCKED THERE AFTER. VISION LESS AFRICAN LEADERS ARE THE CAUSE OF ALL OUR TROUBLES.
Most probably because of the colour of his skin.the white man believe every black skin is a criminal.without thinking of what they have done to the black African 400 years ago from kidnapping to slavery .then to colonization.but I have the believe that one day the black man will revenge to all those criminals activities from the whites before the end of the world