Attorney Wayne Munroe has written to Attorney General Carl Bethel charging that the arrest and detention of former Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC) Executive Chairman Dion Smith and eight BAIC employees were "unreasonable, without foundation, a breach of their constitutional rights and was due to their perceived political affiliation".
In two separate letters to Bethel and BAIC, Munroe alleged that the arrests and detention of Smith and the eight employees and the ensuing police visits to their homes caused injury to their families.
In one letter, Munroe details how the employees were arrested at BAIC, taken to their homes in handcuffs as police searched the homes and later detained at police stations with no beds, only concrete slabs.
"We would further advise that the circumstances attending the visits to our clients' residences have caused injury to our clients' family," Munroe wrote.
"This injury was reasonably forseeable and no steps were taken to guard against it. To the contrary, the design of the operation to search our clients' residences caused the forseeable harm.
"We write to inquire as to your position on liability in this matter.
"Should we not hear [favorably] from you we are instructed to commence action against you."
He added, "We would ask that you let us have your position in the next 10 working days."
The letters are dated August 8, 2017.
Smith and the BAIC employees were arrested, separately, in May in connection with a theft probe at the corporation.
Police have since determined that no wrongdoing occurred in that matter.
Along with Smith, Munroe wrote on behalf of Ricardo Smith, Latona McPhee, Tamica McPhee, Shanice Rolle, Shannon McPhee, Andrea Moss, Julian Bridgewater and Bernardo Smith.
Munroe said there was no legitimate complaint from BAIC because it would require a decision by the board; that no warrant to arrest his clients was ever presented to him; that there was no justification to handcuff his clients, and that there was no justification to hold his clients overnight.
"As a fact, the CCTV system of BAIC clearly showed only two of our male clients removing belongings at the direction of the executive chairman," Munroe said.
"There was therefore no reason to even justify the questioning of the other clients not depicted on the CCTV footage.
"Further, after the conclusion of an inventory conducted, no items said to be missing had been reported to the head of security at BAIC."

Employees handcuffed
Munroe said the eight employees were at work at 4:30 p.m. on May 16 when officers entered the building with "assault weapons and semi automatic handguns" and arrested them.
"Our clients were kept in a meeting room at BAIC," he said.
Munroe said he was allowed to speak with his clients at 5:30 p.m.
"Our clients were then advised that they would be transported to the Central Detective Unit (CDU)," he said.
"A request by our clients to drive their private vehicles to CDU in convoy was refused. Our clients were then all put in a police van in the public view. This event occasioned comments on social media adverse to our clients.
"Our clients were then checked into the East Street South Police Station where detention records were made up for them. This event also occasioned comments on social media adverse to our clients.
"Our clients were taken to CDU. They were handcuffed and taken in smaller groups to search their homes. They were never shown a search warrant.
"In each case, the vehicles in which they were taken to their homes were proceeded with siren, horns and flashing lights.
"The effect of this, desired or otherwise, was that the neighbors of our clients were alerted to the attendance by the police at our clients' residences for search.
"Further, the families of our clients, including minor relatives, were forcibly alerted to the attendance of the police at the residence for search."
Armed officers stood outside the homes in each search, Munroe said.
"Our clients were handcuffed during the search of their residences in the presence of their families and minor relatives," he said.
"At the residence of Latona McPhee, the police seized a number of televisions and a computer notwithstanding that the packaging in which the items were imported on a Bahamasair flight as accompanied luggage was present in the residence and in conspicuous view."
Munroe said the men were detained overnight at the South Beach Police Station in cells that had no bedding.
The women were taken to the Cable Beach Police Station and kept in cells that also had no bedding. In each case, Munroe said the only provision for sleeping was concrete slabs, which were insufficient to the number of persons detained in the cell.

Smith was invited to CDU
As it relates to Dion Smith, Munroe wrote that his client was "invited" to CDU on May 18.
When he arrived, Smith was advised that he was under arrest with regards to an allegation of theft of a television, CPU of a desktop computer, an external hard drive and a set of plug-in speakers for a computer.
Smith was then handcuffed and driven to his former constituency headquarters where he pointed out the television owned by him and a powered speaker, not speakers for a computer.
Smith was then taken to his home at Port New Providence where he pointed out boxes containing photographs and other personal effects formerly kept in his office at BAIC.
He was then held overnight.
"A decision was made to release our client from custody the following day," Munroe said. "This release was delayed to the afternoon as a result of the relevant senior officer being at a funeral."
Munroe said at no time was any of his clients offered a reason for their refusal to be released on police bail or released pending further investigations.

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