News Briefs - No Ebola case in Jamaica

The Ministry of Health & Wellness on Saturday indicated that while some travellers are in quarantine, there is no case of Ebola in Jamaica.

The ministry says it continues to carry out surveillance at ports of entry, ensuring that person who had travelled to or through an Ebola-affected country in the 21 days prior to landing in Jamaica are quarantined.

It said eight persons have been placed in self-quarantine with monitoring by the ministry since May 25 and none are displaying symptoms of the illness. This means transmission would have been unlikely and they would not have posed any risk to other passengers.

Former TCI premier faces prison time for corruption 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP):

A court in the Turks and Caicos Islands has sentenced former Premier Michael Misick to just over four years in prison after he was convicted in a landmark corruption case that had dragged on for years.

Misick was arrested in December 2012 in Brazil, after his application for political asylum was rejected there. He was accused of corruption, misusing public money and profiting from the sale of government-owned land to developers.

The verdict, handed down on Friday, sentenced Misick to four years and 26 days in prison. In early February, Misick was convicted on three counts of bribery. He has said that all the charges against him were politically motivated.

Former Cabinet minister McAllister Hanchell and attorney Thomas Misick — Michael Misick's brother — were also sentenced in the same case on Friday. Hanchell was sentenced to three years and Thomas Misick to four years. All three were taken into custody and are expected to appeal their sentences.

Michael Misick stepped down as premier in 2009, shortly after Britain temporarily took control of the territory’s government and suspended its constitution following allegations of rampant corruption. The period of direct rule ended in November 2012, when new elections were held.

Woman in St Thomas family brawl spared 

The Court of Appeal has upheld the unlawful wounding conviction of a woman who attacked her sister on in 2023, but suspended her 18-month prison term for three years, sparing her immediate incarceration.

The court ruled on Friday that the original custodial term was disproportionate to that of her co-convicts. The appeal was filed in 2024 and arguments heard in December 2025. 

The judgment brings to a close the appeal of Carla May Crooks, who was convicted in the St Thomas Parish Court on May 14, 2024, following an altercation on January 1, 2023 involving her half-sister. 

Crooks, along with her mother Curline Crooks and father Leroy Crooks, was found guilty of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Wilma Leach, the complainant, who held legal title to the property on which the incident occurred. 

While the mother received a non-custodial sentence and Crooks a sentence not requiring immediate incarceration, Carla Crooks was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment at hard labour, a disparity the appeal court ultimately found was difficult to justify.

The prosecution's case was that Carla and her parents entered the complainant's premises uninvited and mounted a sustained attack. 

Leach testified that she was placed in a chokehold, pushed into a fence, beaten inside her home and in her yard, and later struck on the back of the head with a stick by Carla Crooks. She sustained a fractured skull, a broken incisor, multiple bruises, and a swollen eye, according to court records. 

The defence maintained that Carla acted in protection of her father after Leach struck him with a machete. 

But video evidence, reviewed by the appeal court, contradicted that account in material respects.