By Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate EditorADRIAN 'RUDDY' Armstrong, 48, the Montego Bay cambio operator and extradition subject, was released on bail yesterday on an order issued by a Supreme Court judge last Friday, but was arrested immediately by the police.
According to attorney-at-law Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, who had successfully applied for bail for him, Mr. Armstrong had been in custody since his arrest on June 19 at the request of the United States Government, which is seeking his extradition on one count of money laundering.
Mrs. Samuels-Brown said that his release on $5 million bail (ordered by Mrs. Justice Almarie Sinclair-Haynes, acting) had been delayed as up to Friday at 6:30 p.m. because the officers at the New Horizon Remand Centre, 68 Spanish Town Road, Kingston 11, where he was being held, had refused to allow his release until they had permission from the narcotics police, despite the judge's order, and even though he had fulfilled all the conditions set down by the court for his bail.
His attorneys, who were present when he was re-arrested and taken into custody, said they asked the police what he had been charged with and when the alleged offence was committed. The police, according to the attorneys, said he was being charged under the Money Laundering Act and on the instructions of their superior.
His lawyers then went to the Narcotics Division, 230 Spanish Town Road, Kingston 11, where, Mrs. Samuels-Brown said she asked for the particulars of the charge and was told by the arresting officer that he was not prepared to give her that information and refused to have any further conversation with her.
REQUEST NOT SUPPORTED
"To date the request for Mr. Armstrong's extradition on one count of money laundering has not been supported by any details particularising any criminal offence," Mrs. Samuels-Brown stated yesterday. "Further, his lawyers consider it at the very least unfortunate, that the Jamaican charge was not made until his release even though he has been in custody for six weeks and that by the delays last week, and his re-arrest this week, an order of a Judge of the Supreme Court has in effect been defeated."
Armstrong operated the Grand Central Cambio and Cheque Changer until he was arrested on an extradition warrant at a restaurant in the fishing community of Whitehouse, eastern Westmoreland. His cambios were searched, as were his Bay Pointe apartment in the Montego Bay Freeport area.
The Bank of Jamaica, the central bank, on June 22 suspended the licences of the three Grand Central cambios in Montego Bay and the one on March Pen Road, Spanish Town, central St. Catherine.
