Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

IT HAS been 380 days since Linden Graham, a deportee from the United States of America, has been languishing in a Jamaican jail because local officials cannot determine his nationality. Yet, no one knows when his status will be settled.

Gilbert Scott, permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security and the country's chief immigration officer, says: "We have been in communication with the United States Embassy here in Jamaica in order to resolve the matter. In our most recent discussions, the United States has again indicated that they cannot acknowledge Mr. Graham as a citizen of the United States, and therefore cannot accept him back into that country," Scott tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Thisthough is little comfort for Graham, who turns 49 on August 27. "I really don't want to stay here for my birthday," he tells The Sunday Gleaner recently. He has already spent one birthday here.

Hell

"They have taken everything from me ... life inside here is bad, it is hell. I have not given up, but I can't take it anymore," Graham says.

He will remain inside the facility until the Jamaica Government, which had initially claimed him as a citizen, decides his nationality.

"The ministry is continuing our efforts to determine Mr. Graham's nationality so that we can take steps to remove him from our jurisdiction or have him released from confinement, with appropriate safeguards until the matter is fully resolved," Scott says.

In February, Leighton Wilson, director of immigration services, told The Sunday Gleaner that Graham was not a Jamaican. "We have verified that he is not a Jamaican, but we cannot verify his nationality. We have done our check and we are satisfied that he is not a Jamaican." Wilson tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Graham was deported to Jamaica after serving time in prison for shooting a man in the back. He says the man did not die and it is an incident that he regrets. The man, he says, had humiliated him by slapping him in the face in the presence of his daughter.

He has, however, protested his nationality, claiming he is from the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix. "I was born in Christianstead, St. Croix. My mother died in childbirth when I was six years old ... I had two sisters and some Indian women came and get them afterwards," he told The Sunday Gleaner in February.

Graham says he lived with his father until age 19 before moving to the United States of America in 1979 with the help of drug dealers, for whom he later worked.

In the U.S.A., Graham says he sold drugs for four years. During this time, he was nabbed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which used him as bait to get his boss. One night while sleeping, Graham claims, he wasbeaten and left to die by some of his boss's other employees. But the FBI was not going to leave him to die and they placed him in a witness protection programme and used him to get the big 'fish'.

"I testified against my boss and he was sent to federal prison. I went to live in L.A. under the witness protection programme," Graham says. In L.A., Graham says, he started a new life, including a family, and even learned welding as a trade before moving back to Las Vegas in 1989.

Guilty

On April 14, 1996, he was jailed, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison, in February 1997. "Nobody knows I am here. The last time I spoke to my kids was in 2002. I promised them that I was going to see them in 2003. I called them and told them 'I am coming out soon'. They asked me when, and I told them, 'Surprise' ... Now this is the surprise I get. They (are) saying I am Jamaican and I isn't no Jamaica," Graham tells The Sunday Gleaner.

He says that despite telling U.S. authorities that they had got the wrong man, he was never interviewed by a Jamaican consulate about his nationality. "I never sign any travel documents. I never got any picture taken for any travel documents. I never speak to a Jamaican consulate, but yet, I obtain a passport."

Since his arrival in the island, Graham has been housed at the Kingston Central police lock-up. He got sick on one occasion and had to be admitted to the Kingston Public Hospital.