Man allegedly 'treated like an animal,' drank toilet water at HMP while awaiting deportation

A man was held at Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's for more than a year after serving his prison sentence, enduring "catastrophic" conditions while federal authorities sorted out his immigration status, documents show.

While at HMP, one of the country's oldest prisons, Doudou Mpumudjie Kikewa was allegedly "treated like an animal," deprived of water and forced to "drink from the toilet," according to hearing transcripts from the Immigration and Refugee Board, a tribunal that makes decisions on immigration matters.

Conditions at HMP have repeatedly been condemned as deplorable. During his time at the penitentiary, the citizen of Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa, also faced "shocking" and "racist" treatment, according to the transcripts. 

The documents show the Francophone was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement at the prison, which had no French services available.

Convicted of identity theft, fraud and breaches of court orders in August 2019, Kikewa, 34, should have left prison about a year later. Instead, he remained at HMP until March 2022.

Serving what immigration lawyers call "double punishment," the permanent resident was declared inadmissible by the immigration board and a deportation order was issued in June 2020. He was kept in provincial prison while awaiting deportation because the board believed he presented a flight risk and a danger to the public.

In early March, Radio-Canada reported that Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province not to have stopped detaining migrants in provincial prisons or to have committed to phase out the practice. The province has since told Ottawa that as of March 31, 2025, it will no longer allow federal authorities to hold detainees in provincial prisons purely on immigration grounds.

Kikewa's deportation to Congo, a country he hadn't set foot in since he was a teenager, was delayed multiple times. Transcripts show he refused to co-operate with Canada Border Services Agency employees and wouldn't take a COVID-19 test, a measure required by Congolese authorities. His file also underwent a procedural review in Federal Court, which prolonged his case.

As Kikewa's stay at HMP dragged on, documents show his mental state appeared to deteriorate.

"[Kikewa] had begun experiencing distressing mental health issues and had been placed in solitary confinement and under suicide watch, as he had been observed banging his head repeatedly against the wall," reads a federal immigration court judgment from January 2022. 

In a statement submitted to the immigration board in February 2021, the assistant superintendent at HMP explained the prison's "inability to offer this inmate the same services that are afforded to the rest of the inmate population." 

"We do not offer programming in French and we are unable to offer ethnic diversity. Further to this, this individual does not have any family support within the area, he does not have any money in his account to purchase hygiene products and/or the canteen, he does not have any community resources for interaction through visits or phone calls."

Newfoundland and Labrador doesn't have any federal detention centres for immigrants. In monthly detention review decisions from the immigration board, Kikewa's detention at HMP was repeatedly described as the only option available given the lack of "viable alternatives" in the province.

While Kikewa was eventually granted a transfer to a detention centre in Quebec, a province where members of his family reside and correctional workers speak French, the move took months.