Lead Stories

Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

In an apparent about-face in the extradition fight over west Kingston enforcer Chris-topher 'Dudus' Coke, Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne said she had taken into account evidence besides the contentious wiretapping information in signing the request for proceedings to begin.

There are also conflicting reports as to who made the final call. Lightbourne, who also shoulders responsibility of attorney general, has insisted that "it is not true that I acted under the direction of the prime minister", a clear response to inferences that Bruce Golding had ordered her to sign the extradition request.

The disclosures were made in court documents filed by the minister in response to Coke's application for his warrant of arrest to be stayed. He is seeking leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to have the authority to proceed with his warrant of arrest quashed.

Coke's application was set for hearing yesterday before Chief Justice Zaila McCalla in chambers at the Supreme Court but has been put off until tomorrow. An adjournment was granted after Coke's lawyers Paul Beswick and Don Foote said they had received the minister's affidavit on the weekend and needed time to study it and respond.

The Government had, for the last nine months, refused to comply with the request from the United States government on the basis that that country needed additional information because the evidence sent was in breach of the Interception of Communications Act.

However, Lightbourne did not state why the non-wiretap evidence had not prompted the extradition pursuit in the first place; or if that information had not been in her hands from the very beginning.

Coke, 41, is wanted by the US government to face charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana and illegally trafficking in firearms.

Lightbourne, who is being represented by Queen's Counsel R.N.A. Henriques and attorney-at-law Allan Wood, has said in the affidavit filed on May 28 that it was wholly untrue for Coke to assert that she had not independently exercised her discretion under the Extradition Act.

The minister and the director of public prosecutions are the defendants.

Coke is alleging in his affidavit that the minister acted under the direction of the prime minister when she issued the authority to proceed, but the minister claims that is not true. She said she advised the prime minister and the Cabinet at a meeting held at 11 a.m. on May 17 that she would be signing the authority to proceed, and the prime minister made the announcement later that day in an address to the nation.

Lightbourne said when she signed the authority to proceed, she had also taken into consideration the public interest, which included that the Government "not be placed in a position where it could be accused of having breached its solemn obligations under the extradition treaty with the government of the USA".

Lightbourne is not proceeding with the motion she had filed on April 17 seeking declarations as to her powers under the Extradition Act. She said in the affidavit that she had no contesting party and the United States government had declined to appear in the matter.

Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller, and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica were the defendants, but they were released by Supreme Court judge Roy Jones. Coke was a defendant, but he was not served as it was reported that it was not possible to locate him.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com