Dawn Rich, Contributor

IN THE Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe presiding, six defendants including Senior Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams were found 'not guilty'. They faced a jury of their peers.

It should be noted that the Chief Justice presided over the case himself, and that Kent Pantry, the Director of Public Prosecutions, prosecuted it although it had been started by his deputy.

Of note, the jury was unable to access certain items of evidence such as the sworn statement of a witness who failed to be found until after the case was closed.

All this calls into question the competence with which the Kraal matter was handled in the Supreme Court.

ADAMS' REINSTATEMENT

The policemen accused of murder have been acquitted. But there was no rush either to reinstate Adams or fire him.

Presumably, because everybody from the Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips on through to Noel Hylton, chairman of the Police Services Commission (PSC), and down to the Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas, were simply following the regulations and letting due process take its course.

In an earlier column, I wrote that the police commissioner and Mr. Hylton were just tossing the Adams reinstatement issue back and forth like a hot potato.

Eventually, he was reinstated to a desk job, and back in a khaki uniform. No more helmet and goggles for him.

I personally don't care what the regulations say.

The fact remains that the matter was referred to the constitutional authority, the Police Services Commission.

If the regulations mean automatic reinstatement after acquittal, then why did the police Ccmmissioner go to the Police Services Commission?

Indeed, why did the PSC spend so long a time studying the situation and considering the matter?

The inescapable con-clusion is that they could have decided otherwise. The PSC could have 'retired him in the public interest'.

This country has a long and proud history of retiring all sorts of people in the public interest for nothing half as serious as that. Why should Adams be any different?

Now the visas of all six acquitted policemen have been revoked by both the United States and Canada. But not before the British High Commission here had muttered a few tut-tuts when it became obvious that Adams was to be reinstated.

One of the Kraal defendants Devon Bernard, flew up to John F. Kennedy International airport in New York. But after a six-hour interrogation he was denied entry.

Upon returning to Jamaica he said "We intend to pursue every means to get to the bottom of this. We don't intend to sit down and be treated like this. In essence, we are not free. We are still being punished for what we have been acquitted of in the courts."

This, therefore, demonstrates that there is no justice in Jamaica, only outside. Since the greatest prize for the majority of Jamaicans is the freedom to travel, I'm delighted to know that the Kraal Six no longer enjoy it. I hope this goes on indefinitely. At least the chickens are coming home to roost.

There is no more damning indictment upon a country than when its own security forces are not allowed to enter another country, not even as visitors. This has brought incalculable shame upon Jamaica and its institutions.

Far from sending them abroad to help where help is needed, which Jamaica has done in the past, some members of our own security forces are no longer wanted even as visitors abroad. So low have we sunk.

When foreign countries go around revoking visas of our security forces, everybody better run and hide from them.

FEEL VINDICATED

Pearnel Charles, JLP MP, who doggedly brought the Kraal matter to the public attention and to the police, must feel vindicated by the action of foreign states.

Indeed so, too, must Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans For Justice, who as soon as Adams was reinstated, instantly made it known publicly that as far as she is concerned, he doesn't even deserve a desk in the Police Commissioner's Office.

I couldn't agree more, and certainly wouldn't want to have my eye on Adams.

But this apparently is the only way that Lucius Thomas is prepared to have him at all. And if Adams is ever sent out on the street again, I hope it's a permanent police post on the Pedro Cays.

The British Government's security forces are more than a little involved with ours by the presence of some Englishmen in top police jobs here.

They'll have to do more than just tut-tut, or pack it in. Their officers cannot serve alongside ours purely as a calypso photo opportunity. Nor simply quit the social scene when dirty cops arrive.

They either make a difference, or become contaminated too. So Lucius Thomas will have to keep a very close eye on them as well.

These are uncharted waters for Jamaica. The police commissioner has the responsibility. He is the captain on the bridge in the battle for public order and justice.

Right now, he has many soiled cops on his hands and a Supreme Court that has been publicly mocked by not one, but three foreign governments.

Are we to expect, therefore, that the visas of others involved in this shameful affair will also be revoked?