Omar Anderson, Gleaner Writer
( L - R ) CHUCK AND NICHOLSON
JUSTICE MINISTER A. J. Nicholson yesterday repudiated charges by Delroy Chuck, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Spokesman on Justice, that faulty prosecuting and investigations led to Tuesday's acquittal of three policemen in the Kraal murder case.
Mr. Chuck also suggested that the Government and "those in authority" were colluding to sanction extrajudicial killings.
"It is disingenuous for Mr. Chuck, who wishes to be justice minister in Jamaica, to tell Jamaica and the world that the authorities here are in collusion with others to sanction extra-judicial killings," Minister Nicholson stated. "Mr. Chuck knows it's not true and could not be true."
According to Mr. Nicholson, the Government spared no expense and effort in bringing experts from the United Kingdom, and particularly Scotland Yard, to investigate the Kraal killings.
A 12-member jury freed Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Reneto Adams, Corporal Patrick Coke and Constable Shane Lyons of the murder of four persons in Kraal, Clarendon, more than two years ago.
"The failure of the police to bring a key prosecuting witness, Danhai Williams, who had given incriminating evidence to investigators, is inexplicable," Chuck said in a statement. "The JLP is concerned that the trial might have been compromised."
The prosecution had also failed to call Bashington 'Chen Chen' Douglas, a wanted man for whom SSP Adams and his men had visited Kraal. Mr. Douglas had given a statement to investigators from the Police Public Complaints Authority (PPCA).
GRANTED IMMUNITY
The Gleaner reported yesterday that Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Kent Pantry, Q.C., had granted Mr. Williams immunity for him to testify against SSP Adams.
In a statement Mr. Williams, a PNP activist and businessman, told the police in July 2003 that he had arranged for SSP Adams to get a gun which the prosecution said the senior superintendent had planted at Kraal following the killing of the four persons there on May 7, 2003.
Mr. Williams was a no-show at the Kraal trial. He, however, appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court at Half-Way Tree in the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC)/Operation PRIDE case.
There, he told the judge he was being forced to lie in the Kraal matter as the reason for not reporting to the police occasionally, as stipulated by his bail conditions.
According to Mr. Chuck, the justice system had passed the point of mere concern, was "in deep crisis", and urgently needed a full inquiry.
He regretted that despite the more than 140 police killings annually, no member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has ever been successfully prosecuted in the courts over the past five years.
Said he: "The people are left in grave doubt (about) whether the present Government and persons in authority quietly but effectively sanction extra-judicial killings, which go unpunished and continue unabated."
In Court last Friday, Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe threatened to jail human rights advocate Dr. Carolyn Gomes, for gesticulating in reaction to his directions to the jury. That too did not escape the JLP's criticism yesterday.
"The intemperate attack and threat of imprisonment against Dr. Gomes by Chief Justice Wolfe, at a critical stage of the trial, was most unwarranted, bombastic and injudicious," Mr. Chuck stated.
Said Nicholson yesterday: "If the verdict had gone another way, you would not have heard him (Chuck) say what he said today (yesterday). He would have said it was the 'mother of all investigations'."
