‘Stateless’ asylum seeker found dead in his cell

source: The Independent
published: 4 June 2014

A young asylum seeker has been found dead at a Victorian jail which is still being run as a prison despite only housing people seeking refuge in Britain, The Independent has learnt.

Bruno Dos Santos, who was in his 20s and has a child in the UK, was discovered in his cell at around 7.30am this morning at HMP The Verne, which is on the Isle of Portland in Dorset and dates back to the 1840s.

The prison has been used solely by the Home Office to house asylum seekers since March, but plans to convert it into an immigration removal centre have been put on hold until the autumn – meaning that it is run as a jail and detainees are kept under harsher conditions than normal. Their access to legal advice to advance their cases is also reduced.

3 April 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Another preventable death in immigration detention

source: IRR News
punlished: 1 April 2014

On Sunday 30 March, Christine Case a 40-year-old Jamaican woman died at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre near Bedford.

According to reports in the press, Christine Case was heard calling for help and had complained of chest pains shortly before she suffered a heart attack. The emergency services were called around 8am but she was pronounced dead at Yarl’s Wood at 8.47am. The centre, run by Serco on behalf of the UK Border Agency holds up to 405 women and their families and its healthcare is contracted out to Serco Healthcare.

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13 July 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Jimmy Mubenga was unlawfully killed, inquest jury finds

originally by: The Guardian
published: 9 July 2013

An Angolan man who died after being restrained by three G4S guards as he was being deported from the UK was unlawfully killed, a jury has found.

Jimmy Mubenga, 46, died on board a plane at Heathrow airport that was bound for Angola in October 2010. At the end of an eight-week inquest, a jury of seven men and three women recorded a majority verdict of nine to one of unlawful killing after four days of deliberations.