Jamaica Observer Article: How Did Dudas Get Extradition Papers?
How did ‘Dudus’ get extradition papers?
‘Dudus’ abandoned fighters in Tivoli, say security officials
Sunday, May 30, 2010
MILITARY and police personnel Friday said that copies of the extradition documents filed by the United States Government against Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke were found in his Presidential Click office in Tivoli Gardens after the community was secured by the authorities.
At the same time, they painted Coke as a coward who, after importing at least 400 gunmen from outside Tivoli to fight in his defence, fled the community shortly after the security forces began their operation last Monday to arrest him and restore order to the area.
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On Friday, two attorneys with whom the Sunday Observer shared the information about the documents expressed surprise, as they said it was not the practice for the subject of an extradition to be in possession of the papers supporting that request.
“It would be very unusual,” said one of the attorneys, whom the Sunday Observer will not name.
“My antennae would go up on getting that information,” said the other lawyer who explained that extradition documents would only be shared with the subject’s attorney after the subject was arrested.
The first attorney also questioned the Judicial Review filed by Coke’s lawyers in relation to Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne’s decision to sign the extradition request, a move that would put Coke before a Resident Magistrate to determine whether he has a case to answer in the US.
The US Government indicted Coke on arms and drugtrafficking charges last August but the Jamaican Government had refused to sign the document to begin the extradition process.
The Judicial Review is scheduled to come before the High Court tomorrow. Coke’s lawyers are arguing that the minister had contended for the past nine months that the US had illegally obtained wire-tap information against their client.
“The reason given for the challenge at this stage is highly unusual,” said the attorney.
According to members of the security forces, they also found other sensitive documents relating to the extradition in Coke’s office, from which he ran his entertainment company.
They declined to reveal more but were obviously peeved at the discovery which suggested that Coke was the beneficiary of assistance from influential circles.
On Friday, the security officials confirmed an Observer report last week that Coke was paying gunmen from outside Tivoli to help fight the security forces who were intent on executing an arrest warrant on the man for whom hundreds of Tivoli residents — mostly women — staged a peaceful street protest two weeks ago, urging the authorities to leave him alone and declaring that they were willing to die for him.
Last Tuesday, the Observer had reported that Coke — a supporter of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party — was said to be paying members of criminal gangs aligned to the Opposition People’s National Party up to $100,000 per day to wreak havoc in sections of Kingston as gunmen loyal to the Tivoli Gardens don sought to prevent his arrest.
On Friday, police and military officials said that the information they received was that 400 gunmen were imported into Tivoli ahead of the security forces’ operation.
As confirmation of the accuracy of that information, the authorities on Friday pointed to the fact that many of the 500 men detained during the operation were unable to give an address in Tivoli.
Of the 500, only eight are still in detention, Deputy Commissioner of Police Charles Scarlett told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
According to Scarlett, the remaining detainees have been identified as being wanted for a number of crimes, including murder and larceny.
Scarlett also rubbished a claim being made on the streets that Coke was escorted by cops out of Tivoli during the police/military operation.
“That’s just a part of the propaganda machinery designed to affect the credibility of the security forces,” he told the Sunday Observer.
On Friday, military personnel said they suspected that Coke fled Tivoli Gardens as early as 4:00 pm on Monday, a few hours after the operation began.
“I got the feeling, based on the level of resistance, that he had left somewhere about that time,” said one army spokesman. He said that by the following day he was convinced that Coke had abandoned his fighters as the resistance had reduced significantly.
Jamaican Gleaner Article: The Jamaican Government Is Playing Politics Over Dudas Extradition To The USA.
Dudus about-turn
Published: Tuesday | June 1, 2010 9 Comments and 0 Reactions
// 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.
German Publication Der Spiegel Article: Kingston Picks Up The Pieces After Manhunt.
The Cost of Finding Dudus
Kingston Picks Up the Pieces as Manhunt Continues
By Jens Glüsing translated from German to English by Paul Cohen.
Gun freaks appreciate the outstanding effectiveness of the Grizzly Big Boar rifle. US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq praise its accuracy and aficionados admire the penetrating power of the 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) caliber weapon. A firearm like this can fetch over $8,000 (€6,500) on the streets of New York. It is especially popular among snipers — and drug barons waging a private war against the government, such as Jamaica’s Christopher “Dudus” Coke, 41.
Rumors have been circulating for weeks that the most wanted criminal on the Caribbean island had a high-performance weapon like this in his possession. Soldiers hunting for the gangster found an empty box “for a large-caliber sniper rifle,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds last week. Among the over 7,000 cartridges that the security forces reportedly seized after days of gunfights in the slums, a number were allegedly of the legendary 12.7 mm caliber.
But law enforcement officials may have been exaggerating somewhat. In reality, the haul recovered by security forces was rather pitiful. In the largest military and police operation in the history of Jamaica, authorities had confiscated by the end of last week “seven rifles, six handguns and a few homemade explosive devices,” says Hinds. Over 2,000 police and soldiers combed the poorer neighborhoods of the capital Kingston last week. At least 73 civilians and 3 members of the security forces died in exchanges of fire between troops and gangsters, and 700 suspects were arrested. The government declared a state of emergency, and business activities in the capital came to a standstill.
The fugitive, however, is still at large — and the bloody manhunt has left behind a capital city whose outraged inhabitants threaten to shake the political stability of the island.
‘The Soldiers Shot Him from Behind’
Streets are still littered with smashed fruit crates, boards and planks — the remains of barricades built by the slum inhabitants in an attempt to halt the troops’ advance. Smoke rises from a burned-out car. “We have the prime minister to thank for this chaos,” says a woman who calls herself “Carey.” She smirks at a group of soldiers who are spooning their lunch from paper plates. “We’re also hungry, but without work we have no money.”
A friend of hers says that one of Coke’s men hid in a tree: “The soldiers shot him from behind. First his rifle fell from the tree, then the guy.”
Patera Henry, a young schoolteacher, allegedly died on her way to church: “A soldier shot her,” says a woman who knew her, who wants to remain anonymous out of fear of the police. She took a picture of the dead woman with her pink mobile phone — the photo shows a young woman wearing a black T-shirt and a green skirt — and lying in a pool of blood. Behind her stands a soldier with his rifle at the ready.
“Her body has disappeared,” says Patera’s friend. “The soldiers have burned or buried many of the dead.” It is virtually impossible to verify such allegations: A number of the 73 civilian victims have been buried without an autopsy. A group of grim-faced women stand guard in front of the morgue of Kingston Public Hospital and turn away all visitors: “No one enters without permission from the prime minister.”
It was already last summer that the US government demanded the gangster’s extradition. Coke is wanted in the US on drugs and arms trafficking charges. American officials say that the man from Jamaica is one of the world’s most dangerous criminals.
The drug lord comes from an old established Jamaican criminal clan. His father Lester was an important “don,” as the gangster bosses on the island are respectfully called. Shortly before his planned extradition to the US, he died in a mysterious fire in his jail cell. Two of Coke’s brothers were murdered.
The dons are the true rulers of Jamaica. They control the “garrisons” — the crime-plagued slums. The Caribbean island has been especially hard hit by the region’s economic decline, and crime has flourished in the poor neighborhoods. Jamaica is an important haven for drugs and arms trafficking, and the dons control a large share of the international trade.
Many of them maintain close ties to the political world. Most of the gangs were established when the major parties hired groups of thugs in the 1970s and 1980s to intimidate their rivals during parliamentary elections. Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga even attended Lester Coke’s funeral. Christopher Coke carried on with the family tradition: He backed Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Seaga’s successor as the leader of the conservative Labour Party.
Kingston Stronghold
Coke’s stronghold is the impoverished district of Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston, where reggae star Bob Marley used to live. The area is part of the prime minister’s local constituency. Coke provided Golding with the votes of the slum residents, and in exchange the politician allowed him to attend to his business undisturbed.
The gangster established a state within a state in Tivoli Gardens. He paid for school fees and medication for the residents, mediated family disputes and punished thieves. At the same time, he built up an impressive arsenal: In neighboring Haiti he traded marijuana for handguns and rifles.
In the shadow of the prime minister, who — at best — didn’t care who had bought votes for him, Coke rose to become “the most powerful man in Jamaica,” according to a former minister. The gangster proved to be a clever businessman. He didn’t flaunt his position with money and women, as is customary in the business, and rarely allowed his picture to be taken at parties. Coke founded two legal companies and the prime minister made sure that one of these — the consulting firm Incomparable Enterprise — received government contracts worth millions. In Tivoli Gardens they soon started calling him “president.” Nobody dared challenge his authority.
The symbiosis between the gangster and the government thrived, just as it usually does — until Washington demanded the drug lord’s extradition. Golding postponed the decision for a long time. First he complained that US officials had allegedly illegally tapped his countryman’s phones. Meanwhile, he hindered the efforts of a law firm hired by the Obama administration to negotiate the extradition. It wasn’t until the Americans threatened to impose sanctions against the island that the prime minister abandoned the don. The decision to abandon Coke triggered the bloodbath.
Urban Warfare
Over the past few months, Coke had mobilized his supporters and supplied them with weapons. First, a few hundred women demonstrated in support of the drug baron, wearing white T-shirts printed with the message: “Jesus died for us, we will die for Dudus.” His supporters then built barricades from wrecked vehicles — and when the military marched into Tivoli Gardens, the units were met with a hail of bullets.
Most Jamaican soldiers are young and inexperienced. They were unprepared for urban warfare in the slums. “They murder innocent people,” whispered Carey, the eyewitness, and then quickly disappeared again. A number of heavily armed soldiers were patrolling behind her.
Shortly thereafter, she was hanging out with a few girlfriends on a street corner near Coronation Market, the largest market in the capital. Normally the women sell fruit and vegetables here, but the market stands have been deserted since the battle over Dudus. Coronation Market is located on the outskirts of Tivoli Gardens — soldiers have sealed off all entrances to the slum.
Last Wednesday Red Cross workers were allowed back into the city district for the first time, where they distributed food and water. It is mainly women and children who are traumatized after days of firefights, says Jaslin Salmon, the head of the Jamaican Red Cross.
The Search Continues
Things are slowly returning to normal in the center of the capital. The first businesses have reopened on King Street, buses are running again, and schools began to reopen Monday.
The government has now expanded its search for the drug lord to other city districts and the first exchanges of fire have been reported from the wealthy residential areas of the city. As a precaution, the state of emergency has been extended for a month. “The manhunt continues,” says Glenmore Hinds, the deputy commissioner of police.
Nevertheless, as he later admits somewhat meekly, he cannot be sure if the gangster is even still in Jamaica: “After all, he has contacts all around the world.”
Robin Soderling Upsets Roger Federer In The French Open Men’s Quarterfinals!!
Everyone knows I love Roger Federer! Roger is charming, sexy, smart, multilingual. I can talk all day about Roger Federer.
However, I admit, sometimes Roger is very arrogant and I think Roger underestimated Robin Soderling.
Robin Soderling of Sweden shocked Roger Federer of Switzerland 3-6 6-3 7-5 6-4 in the French Open men’s quarterfinals.
Soderling simply overpowered Federer bullying him all over the tennis court.
Roger Federer has a lot on the line in this match and he failed. Federer has played poor tennis during the clay court season and today Robin Soderling was just too good. This is the first time Federer has lost before the semifinals of a grand slam in six years. Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil was the last man to beat Federer in the third round of the 2004 French Open.
I’ve got to give credit to Robin Soderling, his game has improved dramatically since he shocked Rafael Nadal in the French Open fourth round last year.
After losing the first set, Soderling started to crush the ball off his forehand, backhand, he hit twelve aces in the match. Soderling’s mental toughness has improved. I think this upset is good for men’s tennis, I am tired of watching Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in grand slam finals.
It is nice to see Robin Soderling demonstrate he has the game to beat the best in men’s tennis.
Famous Gay Male Couples On Television.
Noah he is the effeminate openly gay male and lead character of MTV LOGO’s “Noah’s Arc”. Noah’s Arc was the world’s first gay black television show to be broadcast on American television.
Noah’s Arc was a very popular program on MTV LOGO. According to media reports, the production costs were too high to continue the program.
Some people believe MTV LOGO is not racially diverse enough. Noah’s Arc was a perfect opportunity for the network to show the diversity of the gay community.
Noah’s Arc also provided television audiences to have a better understanding of the African American gay male community. The intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality made Noah’s Arc a groundbreaking television program.
Wade was conflicted, closeted, masculine, but he loved Noah so much. Noah helped Wade to accept his homosexuality. Two years ago, in the movie “Jumping The Broom” Noah and Wade finally got married in the state of Massachusetts.
The American soap opera “One Life To Live” had a groundbreaking gay couple Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish. Kyle and Oliver are the first gay male couple to have a love scene broadcast on mainstream American television.
Kyle is a proud gay man and he helped his lover Oliver to accept his homosexuality. Oliver’s family was very conservative and he tried to be straight by dating his friend Layla.
Fans of Kyle & Oliver even created the affectionate name “Kish” to describe the popular gay couple. However, ABC terminated the gay male storyline in April 2010 and this caused an uproar for fans. We may never know what happens to Kyle and Oliver. I hope the groundbreaking storyline helps closeted gays to accept themselves.
Gayblackcanada 