(Caribbean 360) KINGSTON, Jamaica – An arrest warrant has been issued for drug and gun accused Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
A magistrate signed the warrant yesterday, less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Bruce Golding said that Minister of Justice Dorothy Lightbourne would be signing the authorization for the extradition process to begin.
Local media reports say that Coke’s stronghold of Tivoli Gardens and Denham, in Golding’s West Kingston constituency, has been barricaded by his supporters who say they fear an invasion from the security forces.
Golding’s decision to allow the extradition came after he had resisted the request made by the US since last August, on the grounds that the wiretapping used to gather evidence against the gun and drug accused was illegal. He had requested that American authorities provide additional information that would allow the Justice Minister to issue the authorization in keeping with the extradition treaty between the two countries.
But in his address to the nation on Monday night, the Prime Minister indicated he wanted to see the back of the controversy.
“This matter of the extradition has consumed too much of our energies and attention and has led to a virtual paralysis that must be broken,” Golding said.
“I wrestled with the potential conflict between the issues of non-compliance with the terms of the treaty and the unavoidable perception that because Coke is associated with my constituency, the government’s position was politically contrived. I felt that the concepts of fairness and justice should not be sacrificed in order to avoid that perception. In the final analysis, however, that must be weighed against the public mistrust that this matter has evoked and the destabilizing effect it is having on the nation’s business,” he added as he revealed his decision to allow the process to move forward.
Despite Golding’s announcement and his apology and plea for forgiveness for not coming clean from the outset about the ruling Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) hiring of US law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips to intervene in the extradition matter, the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has insisted that he still resign.
Opposition parliamentarians had planned to move a no-confidence motion against him yesterday during a sitting of the House of Representatives. But they stormed out from the angrily after hearing that Golding would not be addressing parliament.
