FREED airline pilot Paul Stephens, who returned home last Thursday after nearly four years of imprisonment in Qatar, has criticised the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s (MFAFT) handling of the matter.
“Let’s hope they don’t treat other Jamaicans like that,” Stephens said about the handling of his efforts to get a reprieve from a five-year sentence for a crime he insists he is not guilty of.
“Whoever is the head, it needs new blood. It needs a new life to be called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.
Stephens said that during his sojourn in Qatar, he actually called Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator AJ Nicholson by cellular phone, but was told that he should “know who he is calling” before hanging up the phone.
He said that he apologised to the minister and offered that he might be calling him at a bad time, but that didn’t help.
“He said: ‘Look man, I have done all that I can for you. Next time you are calling, you make sure you know who you are calling’,” Stephens said of a conversation he had with Nicholson.
During the interview with the press, which took place at the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston, Stephens insisted that he was innocent of the charge of mistrust of a minor for which he was found guilty and sentenced to prison.
“I am innocent. When somebody accuses you of a crime, I don’t even like repeating that word, then downgrade it to molestation; and then you downgrade it to mistrust of minor: I don’t even know what that is… then cage you for four years!” he told the press.
“The prosecutor could not produce the paper (they said) I had signed, that was supposed to be my confession. My human rights were violated, severely. They presented me with papers in Arabic which I did not sign. I never faced my accuser. The suggestion was made that I should marry the young girl and give her family some money and change my religion (from Christian to Islam)… but there was no justice,” he added.
Stephens said he was provided with two lawyers during the case, both of whom have died.
“One died during the case. One died the day I was released. That’s how powerful God is,” he explained.
He said that his worst experience was what he described as an attempt by the MFAFT to taint him.
“This was quite embarrassing, because they don’t know me. What they did was to listen to the typical aristocratic hearsay: Paul Stephens is not from that class. That’s what it is — I am not from that class.
“They didn’t speak to me. They listened to individuals and listened to hearsay to find out who I was,” he contended.
Stephens denied that any outstanding debts owed in Qatar were responsible for the approximately one-month delay in the ministry issuing his travel documents.
He said that he is also confused that the MFAFT has stated that there is no charge for his delayed travel documents, which reached him approximately one month after he had received a pardon from the Qatar Government. He showed a copy of the receipt for the payment of 50 pounts (sterling) for the document.
Stephens was joined by Leader of the Opposition Andrew Holness, and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) spokesman on foreign affairs and foreign trade, Edmund Bartlett, during the press briefing. Holness and Bartlett were credited with bringing the issue to international attention, by raising it with Qatar’s ambassador to Washington during a visit to the United States.
Two women who have actively supported his release over the past year — Judy O’Sullivan and Marsha Nesbeth — gave support during the briefing.
He recalled that there were objections from Muslim prisoners to him reading his Bible in prison. He was actually hospitalised in 2013, after a fight with another inmate.
“At first they wouldn’t allow me to keep a Bible. When you read the Bible, it was always confrontational, not violent, but very strong arguments, because they always want to convert you to Islam,” he stated.
However, he said that, while he was in Qatar, he went to church and lived with a “beautiful” family, but was concerned that citizens were content to survive without some of their basic rights.
Stephens read from a Bible which he carried with him, referring to the experiences of Joseph after he refused to be seduced by Pot’i-phar’s wife, as recorded in Genesis 39:1-6, which he said gave him hope while he was incarcerated.
He said that he had been a member of the Pentecostal Tabernacle, Wildman Street, downtown Kingston, and that the experience has now driven him closer to the church and God.
“I am not comparing myself to Joseph, a holy man, but there was a similar injustice,” he said.
“This experience has drawn me closer to God and removed whatever doubts I have had. It has made me more powerful and drew me closer to Jesus,” he said.
He added that he now intends to take his religion more seriously.
“I don’t want to take the driver’s seat in my life anymore, because I realise that my life is not my own. This thing has taught me patience… anything I do now I will include God in it,” he said.
Stephens was among a number of Jamaican pilots who emigrated to the Middle Eastern nation to work in 2005. He was a first officer with Qatar Airways. However, in 2010 he was accused of sexual molestation and eventually sentenced to five years on a charge of betrayal of trust of a minor.
He was pardoned on July 7, and released five days later to a deportation centre, where he had been awaiting his travel document from the Jamaican Embassy in Kuwait.
Bartlett had repeatedly questioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ delay in providing Stephens with the necessary documentation. But, in a statement issued on August 4, the ministry said it had “timely processed” an application for a passport and Emergency Certificate received on July 26 and sent the needed documents, but that Stephens needed to honour “an outstanding obligation” before he could leave Qatar.
The State of Qatar is a sovereign country located in south-west Asia with a population was 1.8 million, including 278,000 Qatari citizens and 1.5 million foreigners. Sharia law is the main source of Qatari legislation according to Qatar’s Constitution.
Morning Met, bloggers and readers.
First, I couldn’t bypass this “One died during the case. One died the day I was released. That’s how powerful God is…” and this is about his lawyers 😀
I don’t like not even a drop of molestation accusations, so I’m reading at a 98% level of bias .
The only thing I take from this is that the AJ Nicholson nah no manners 😀 I really wonder if he was the person on the phone given the fact that human rights is his forte.
PP
Smh, injustice at its fines
Just thank God you free and you out of prison. Just give God the glory if you indeed are innocent of the allegations. Cause unno teck up unno self gone a deze countries weh dem livestock hab more rights dan unno. I not even vacation in doze places much less fi think fi work in dem. Everybody looking prosperity, and I not knocking a soul fi looking fi greener pastures, but know where unno looking, and when unno azz black unno fi know seh some countries off the list of possibilities. If you must go, then learn the culture in and out, and know your place, play your position and stay in your damn lane, cause title and education will never erase blackness. Some a unno so damn naive it is ridiculous. But as mi seh, tenk God you home and back among your countrymen, if you are indeed innocent then consider the whole episode a learning experience. Cause there is a lesson in everything in life.
Yes anonymous one. U right. Take it with a grain of salt.trust no one accused on child molestation fully. You cannot be charged with such a crime if there was not even an OUNCE of inappropriate behavior or suspicion regarding a minor.
Pilot be glad you free, you sounding too NUFF of yourself. I want to hear more from the victim’s story.
Also, if Jamaica government cannot handle the tremendous child molestation case and those of accusations from their own blessed born Jamaicans, you think is one Quatar pickney them care about? Maybe they didn’t defend him because the evidence against him was overwhelming. We need a report of the matter and the accusations in more detail.
Be glad they didn’t behead your ass, go back to Jamaica, REPENTand try get your life together.
Was d minor he abused male or female by d way?
In any event, I trust to his story fully and ateitwith a grain of salt .
I dont believe the pilot molested the little girl… what i do know is that he was with the little girl mother, the little girl did not like him because she thinks its because of him why her parents break up, after she reported that he touched her, the mother left Qatar with her daughter and went back to Trinidad. You notice he said he has never faced his accuser,. its true because the girl was just upset with him….He left jamaica so seek a better life in Qatar, lots of Jamaican pilits are in the middle east, so to me this could have happened to any body
ppl need to research this story before passing judgement.He did nothing wrong but in these countries you have no say so. Do you really think if he did something like that he would still be here? Paul i’m just happy youre home. He was a pilot for air Jamaica and when it was sold that’s how he ended up being a pilot for Qatar.