'Dudus' Coke does not resist extradition to the United States of America on charges of drug and firearm trafficking

 

On the face of it, it is a little strange. Despite a bloody gun battle in which the security forces storm a barricaded Tivoli during which more than six dozen people are killed, and despite successfully hiding out in rural Jamaica, Dudus is held meekly in a car on his way into Kingston in the company of someone close to the prime minister's office. Once in custody in Jamaica, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke does not resist extradition to the United States of America on charges of drug and firearm trafficking; he goes willingly. US prosecutors confront Coke with the evidence against him: confidential informers are prepared to testify, implicating him in five murders, including one in which Coke "used a chainsaw to kill someone who had stolen drugs from him". The Jamaican courts had approved wiretaps on Coke's telephones, and more than 50,000 conversations had been legally intercepted. True, the Jamaican Government claimed that the content of these calls had been illegally (under Jamaican law) transmitted to US law-enforcement agencies, but the US courts had ruled that the evidence was admissible under US law, and prosecutors were prepared to play some of the tapes of incriminating conversations in court for the world to hear. His goose is cooked! He has previous convictions in the US, and so is not entitled to leniency. They can send him away for life! He could even face the death penalty. But no! He pleads guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering. He faces a maximum sentence of 23 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 10 years of good behaviour. A good deal, if you ask me! If someone told me that Dudus had a highly paid lobbyist working behind the scenes in the US, trying to get him a reduced sentence, I would have no reason to disbelieve him. Dudus admits in open court in front of the judge of being guilty of much more than that. The British newspaper, The Telegraph, of September 2, 2011 reports: "Coke, 42, told a judge in New York: 'I'm pleading guilty because I am'. He said: 'I also ordered the purchase of firearms and the importation of those firearms into Jamaica'." Friends in high places But despite being extradited from Jamaica to the USA on gunrunning charges, and despite the fact that he openly admits being guilty of gunrunning, Coke will not be held accountable for bringing deadly weapons and ammunition into Jamaica. He got a very good deal, I think you will agree. He must have friends in high places. Remember, it was a Jamaican court that gave the permission for Coke's telephone calls to be wiretapped and recorded; the 50,000 conversations which his lawyers tried so desperately to be excluded as evidence in his US trial are in the possession of the Jamaican authorities, and can be used as evidence in Jamaica, should there be any interest in prosecuting him locally. It takes at least two to have a telephone conversation (Roger Clarke, notwithstanding - "Hello! Hello!"). The Jamaican authorities legally collected the wiretap evidence, and no doubt have listened to the conversations, and know who the co-conspirators are. But there seems little interest in any local prosecutions. It seems that we will never know whose voices were on those tapes, and what was said. We waited in vain to hear the contents of the tapes legally recorded by Mr Roderick McGregor several years ago. I expect that the Jamaican courts have approved wiretaps on the telephones of all the major green and orange dons in the Jamaican green and orange garrisons, and that the security forces have listened to hundreds of thousands of conversations, many of them incriminating. Is the Jamaican State going to move against these politically aligned criminals? Or are we waiting on the US, the UK and Canada to do it? Take note: Dudus was not found guilty in a US court of law, which might have raised a doubt of whether he was framed. Dudus pleaded guilty! By his own admission he is a racketeer, and a drug lord and a gunrunner. This is the sort of person Jamaican green and orange politicians associate with. We should not allow the PNP to get political mileage out of Coke's guilty plea, as if its hands are clean. And if the private sector is really as innocent as it would like us to believe, it must cease funding these two corrupt political parties. We are at a delicate moment in our history. We could make a great leap forward.