Extradition warrant signed for Dudus - Tivoli blockade

Filed under: News|Jamaica

Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding, under pressure to resign, has signed the extradition warrant for the arrest of Tivoli don Christopher Dudus Coke. Dudus has been wanted by the United States since August 2009 on charges of trafficking in drugs and guns. The Jamaican Government had delayed acting on it, arguing that the evidence presented by the Americans was gathered in breach of Jamaican law. Coincidentally Tivoli Gardens is an area in the constituency of Bruce Golding.

After blockades were put up at every entrance to Tivoli Gardens the tensions in Kingston started to rise. "The place just tense. We all a keep our fingers crossed," said one man in downtown Kingston, the city's business district where some stores re-opened after closing early on Monday after word spread that the Government had signed the extradition request. The blockades are a measure of the fear in Tivoli that the community is likely to be invaded by police and soldiers in an effort to arrest Coke.

Yesterday, Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers kept a close watch on the movements in the city from a JDF helicopter. The police, at the same time, appealed for calm and sought to assure citizens that they were not aware of any threat of violence, adding that the crime security situation in the country was being assessed on a continuous basis.

Since August last year when it first asked that Coke be handed over, the US had maintained that the Jamaican Government should put the matter before the local courts, but Golding had refused, on grounds that the evidence against Coke was illegally obtained and had breached Jamaican laws.

The about-turn by Golding followed mounting pressure for his resignation as prime minister after he admitted to the nation last week that he had approved the ruling Jamaica Labour Party's hiring of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby US authorities against the extradition matter.

The US State Department yesterday greeted as 'an important first step' Prime Minister Bruce Golding's decision to authorise the attorney general to get the extradition process underway for accused Tivoli Gardens drug and arms trafficker Christopher Dudus Coke.