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EDITORIAL - Peter Bunting Has A Point
EDITORIAL - Peter Bunting Has A Point
Published: Tuesday | September 13, 20119 Comments
Peter Bunting could hardly resist the claim that he is intent on gaining mileage for the People's National Party (PNP). But even if that was his sole motivation, it doesn't diminish the fundamental logic of the argument that he proffered.
Indeed, the question is worth asking - whether a country into its 50th year of Independence, as Jamaica now is, should rely almost entirely on law-enforcement agencies of foreign countries to prosecute and convict its well-connected criminals.
In this case, Mr Bunting, the PNP general secretary, referred to the Ponzi scheme operator, David Smith, and more particularly, Christopher Coke, the Tivoli Gardens mobster, who, in a deal with prosecutors, recently pleaded guilty in a United States federal court in New York to conspiracies related to the importation of narcotics into the US and an assault on a drug dealer in New York.
In that plea-bargain deal, Coke, if the judge doesn't hold differently, could be sentenced up to 23 years in prison. But he has escaped prosecution on up to 42 other counts of racketeering and conspiracy charges, including gunrunning from the US to Jamaica. Prior to Coke's guilty plea, the Americans intended to bring wiretap evidence of the ex-Tivoli Gardens strongman discussing his affairs, as well as a witness' account of how he used a chainsaw to cut in half a subordinate in a Tivoli death chamber.
Such potential evidence of the expanse of Coke's criminal enterprise, and the extent to which he was willing and capable of using the fear of, and actual, violence to impose and maintain his authority, need not be lost to Jamaican officials if they have the will to assume and assert Jamaica's law enforcement and judicial sovereignty.
Preventing Dudus' resurgence
Indeed, at one point when our Government's filibuster against Coke's extradition had become vulgarly naked, the Jamaican authorities did raise the possibility of his trial in this jurisdiction if the US was willing to pass to Jamaica evidence in its possession. In any event, the wiretap information, which helped build America's case against Coke and with which the Government maintained a tenuous claim of violation of his constitutional rights to circumvent extradition, also remains in Jamaican hands. It provides more than a beginning for building other cases against Coke for trial domestically, as Mr Bunting suggested.
Maybe it is true that Peter Bunting's agenda is to embarrass the administration with the fact that Coke was close to the governing Jamaica Labour Party and operated from its key centre of street muscle. However, there is substantial merit to the argument, value from action thereto, that everything be done to ensure there is no opportunity for the re-emergence of Jamaica's most powerful gangster, or a successor - and that the Jamaican law-enforcement and judicial systems are capable of this.
Put another way, Jamaica has an opportunity, symbolic and real, to return to a society truly founded on the rule of law and a politics, of all sides, that is not corrupted by, and beholden to, the muscle and money of hard men of criminality and violence. It ought not be necessary for enforcement of that code of behaviour to be imposed from outside.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
Published: Tuesday | September 13, 20119 Comments
Peter Bunting could hardly resist the claim that he is intent on gaining mileage for the People's National Party (PNP). But even if that was his sole motivation, it doesn't diminish the fundamental logic of the argument that he proffered.
Indeed, the question is worth asking - whether a country into its 50th year of Independence, as Jamaica now is, should rely almost entirely on law-enforcement agencies of foreign countries to prosecute and convict its well-connected criminals.
In this case, Mr Bunting, the PNP general secretary, referred to the Ponzi scheme operator, David Smith, and more particularly, Christopher Coke, the Tivoli Gardens mobster, who, in a deal with prosecutors, recently pleaded guilty in a United States federal court in New York to conspiracies related to the importation of narcotics into the US and an assault on a drug dealer in New York.
In that plea-bargain deal, Coke, if the judge doesn't hold differently, could be sentenced up to 23 years in prison. But he has escaped prosecution on up to 42 other counts of racketeering and conspiracy charges, including gunrunning from the US to Jamaica. Prior to Coke's guilty plea, the Americans intended to bring wiretap evidence of the ex-Tivoli Gardens strongman discussing his affairs, as well as a witness' account of how he used a chainsaw to cut in half a subordinate in a Tivoli death chamber.
Such potential evidence of the expanse of Coke's criminal enterprise, and the extent to which he was willing and capable of using the fear of, and actual, violence to impose and maintain his authority, need not be lost to Jamaican officials if they have the will to assume and assert Jamaica's law enforcement and judicial sovereignty.
Preventing Dudus' resurgence
Indeed, at one point when our Government's filibuster against Coke's extradition had become vulgarly naked, the Jamaican authorities did raise the possibility of his trial in this jurisdiction if the US was willing to pass to Jamaica evidence in its possession. In any event, the wiretap information, which helped build America's case against Coke and with which the Government maintained a tenuous claim of violation of his constitutional rights to circumvent extradition, also remains in Jamaican hands. It provides more than a beginning for building other cases against Coke for trial domestically, as Mr Bunting suggested.
Maybe it is true that Peter Bunting's agenda is to embarrass the administration with the fact that Coke was close to the governing Jamaica Labour Party and operated from its key centre of street muscle. However, there is substantial merit to the argument, value from action thereto, that everything be done to ensure there is no opportunity for the re-emergence of Jamaica's most powerful gangster, or a successor - and that the Jamaican law-enforcement and judicial systems are capable of this.
Put another way, Jamaica has an opportunity, symbolic and real, to return to a society truly founded on the rule of law and a politics, of all sides, that is not corrupted by, and beholden to, the muscle and money of hard men of criminality and violence. It ought not be necessary for enforcement of that code of behaviour to be imposed from outside.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
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