Shelly-Ann Thompson, Staff Reporter

With general elections scheduled for the end of this month, the police said they were still trying to determine whether five fatal shootings in the Corporate Area last month were politically motivated.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, head of the Major Investigations Task Force (MIT), said the five cases were being investigated to determine whether they were connected to politics.

Cases

Among those incidents under examination are the murder of Michael Jonas of August Town on July 23; the killings, of two men on Sunrise Crescent, near Red Hills Road, on Thursday last week; the murder of Sanjay Ebanks in Woodford Park, South East St. Andrew, on July 19; the killing of a couple - Camille Bailey and Clive Baker, alleged supporters of the JLP - last Saturday morning on Park Lane in North Central St. Andrew; and the drive-by shooting of Howard Archer, in Gordon Town, St. Andrew, on the weekend.

ACP Green said his team may soon rule that the murders of Jonas and Archer were not politically motivated as investigations are showing otherwise.

"But we are still investigating the link," ACP Green said. "These cases have not been closed so we can't say that they were politically related, but they have come to us in that manner for investigation."

Political violence

Several acts of political violence and intimidation have occurred in communities islandwide, especially in the Corporate Area.

The Jamaica Labour Party's candidate for South East St. Andrew, Joan Gordon-Webley, has claimed that since last October, seven supporters of her party have died as a result of violence in the constituency.

At the same time, Maxine Henry-Wilson, the People's National incumbent for the constituency, reluctantly told The Gleaner that two of her supporters were murdered last month in what were alleged to be acts of political violence.

One incident occurred in Mountain View, last weekend, while the other occurred in June.

However, neither of the two incidents is included in the list of possible political killings provided by the MIT.

"I am not about running around claiming dead bodies," Mrs. Henry-Wilson told The Gleaner.

shelly-ann.thompson@gleanerjm.com.