Bruce Golding's 'greatest' regret

More than a decade since gangsters challenged the security forces in defence of strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding has called the hiring of United States lobbyists to circumvent the extradition process his “greatest regret”.

At least 69 civilians and one soldier died in the May 2010 insurgency as criminals traded bullets with the police and army in support of the since-convicted West Kingston drug kingpin and gunrunner whose reach spanned dozens of communities.

The extradition request signalled the wind-up of Coke’s more than 20-year reign in the capital city but was also the death knell of Golding’s political career.

He was midway his five-year term in office when the affair forced his departure.

In a sit-down Gleaner interview days before Jamaica marks its 60th independence anniversary, the former West Kingston member of parliament rued his decision to engage Los Angeles-based law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

“In terms of my greatest regret, it would have had to do with the extradition of Coke,” Golding reflected.

“But not so much the extradition itself but the engagement of Manatt,” he added.

Critics of the former prime minister called his decision to challenge the US’s request political suicide.

But Golding has said that the position taken by the Government was that the extradition request was flawed because critical provisions of the country’s Constitution were violated.

Golding said that he challenged Washington to use legitimate means to make its case against Coke.

“I said to America, ‘Correct that. Do it the right way and then we will respond appropriately’. They basically said, ‘Well, you know, however we get the information, we get it,’” he said.

Coke was handed a 23-year sentence in a US federal prison for drug trafficking, having waived his right to an extradition trial weeks earlier.

Scores of residents in Coke’s Tivoli Gardens redoubt, the epicentre of his criminal enterprise, were the benefactors of the spoils from his transnational gunrunning and drug-trafficking network which ultimately sent the United States knocking on Jamaica’s door.

“We should not have engaged Manatt because that was seeking to go around the extradition procedure itself and to try and get some better understanding on the part of the Americans ... . So that was an error,” said Golding.

His administration at the time had argued that it was the Jamaica Labour Party, which Golding led, that had engaged the services of the powerful law firm.

On reflection, Golding said that the great misfortune of all that transpired was that the request came for Coke, whose criminal activities are believed to have resulted in hundreds of murders across the island. He was never prosecuted for major crimes by Jamaican authorities.

Golding suggested that his Government’s defence of Coke was grounded in principle, asserting that had the request come for a middle- to upper-class Jamaican, public response would have been different.

Drawing on the case involving Richard ‘Storyteller’ Morrison, Golding said that the challenge was to disrupt any attempt by the US to set a precedent by breaking Jamaica’s laws in preparing extradition requests.

Morrison, who was wrongfully extradited in 1991, spent 22 years behind bars in the US and was subsequently awarded $3 million by the Supreme Court for the error.

He has since appealed against the award.

The then Government had appealed to the US for him to be returned but the country denied the request.

“I don’t care how small we are, how unpowerful we are, but I said to the rest of the world and I said to America, ‘Our Constitution and our laws, we dare not trample on them, and we’re not allowing you to trample on them either’.

“I will go to my grave with that position,” said Golding.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com