Sascha?Wil­son

Two Moru­ga broth­ers, who spent three years in prison await­ing tri­al on a mur­der charge, are su­ing the state for the in­hu­mane and de­plorable con­di­tions they were sub­ject­ed to dur­ing their in­car­cer­a­tion.

Antares Khan, 24, and Kendelle Khan, 29, both farm­ers, claim their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights have been vi­o­lat­ed as they were sub­ject­ed to, among oth­er things, cru­el and un­usu­al treat­ment at Gold­en Grove Re­mand Prison in Ari­ma.

De­scrib­ing the con­di­tions as con­trary to the dig­ni­ty of any hu­man be­ing, the men said they were placed in cells which were small, over­crowd­ed, cramped and in­fest­ed with cock­roach­es, mos­qui­toes, flies, rats and ants.

The cell had de­bris and smelt of stale urine, vom­it, old rub­bish and fae­ces, they said.

The broth­ers al­so com­plained the cell lacked light­ing, ven­ti­la­tion, sleep­ing fa­cil­i­ties and run­ning wa­ter.

They said they used a buck­et as a toi­let and they were pro­vid­ed with in­ad­e­quate, poor­ly-pre­pared meals, some­times the fish would be rot­ten.

They claimed the drink­ing wa­ter was not fit for hu­man con­sump­tion and they were ex­posed to con­ta­gious ill­ness and dis­eases from oth­er cell­mates.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the men are claim­ing they were ex­posed to the risk of be­ing beat­en, sodomised and sex­u­al­ly abused by oth­er pris­on­ers and prison staff; lim­it­ed air­ing time and re­ceived sub-stan­dard med­ical care and treat­ment.

Antares, in his af­fi­davit, said: "I was al­ways wor­ried, frus­trat­ed and griev­ing to go home from this place I would de­scribe as hell. I nev­er im­aged a place with such dis­gust­ing smells and sights ex­ist­ed."

His broth­er, in his af­fi­davit, added: "While in prison I was ex­posed to var­i­ous ill­ness­es and dis­eases and fell ill dur­ing de­ten­tion as I was di­ag­nosed with chick­en pox, the com­mon cold, chest in­fec­tion, kid­ney stones, rash­es, lota, ath­letes foot and ring­worm.

"I was even in con­tact with pris­on­ers who are car­ri­ers of dis­eases, such as tu­ber­cu­lo­sis and Aids."

Both broth­ers were charged on Feb­ru­ary 16, 2012 with the mur­der of Mar­cus Coop­er.

How­ev­er, the charge was dis­missed in May 2015 af­ter a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry re­vealed there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to link them to the crime.

Al­though the State is aware of the con­di­tions, the broth­ers said they have failed to ad­dress them.

"The State has been aware of these con­di­tions of de­ten­tion for re­mand pris­on­ers but has thus far failed and/or re­fused to make suf­fi­cient im­prove­ments to rec­ti­fy the de­fi­cien­cies and rem­e­dy the reach of the fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights of pris­on­ers not to be sub­ject­ed to cru­el and un­usu­al pun­ish­ment," they said.

The broth­ers are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, at­tor­ney Kent Sam­lal, Sean Sobers, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Alvin Pariag and Alana Ram­baran.