The Editor, Sir:

I am amused by the recent comment by the Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Derrick Smith, on his recent proclamation that his party will resume hanging once they are in power.

Now, I really don't know which part of the world Derrick Smith was while the Privy Council was, to use a phrase coined by Mr. Nicholson, "moving the goal post" by establishing threshold after threshold that needed to be covered before a convicted person could be executed. But, if he is not aware of them then someone ought to educate him.

It is interesting to note also that during his grandstanding, he never once mentioned how he or his party would go about circumnavigating these hindrances and how he or his party would go about re-establishing hanging in this country.

It is time that politicians, such as Mr. Smith, on either side of the political fence, stop taking the Jamaican people for fools and gullible recipients of their deceptive speeches and come clean with realistic mechanisms to accomplish their goals.

Let me state categorically that I am pro-death penalty and I am in support of any effort or initiative to commence hanging, provided that all appeal processes have been exhausted. But whatever proposal is brought to the fore it must be realistic and achievable.

I am, etc.,

ERROL McLIESH

ermarlii16@hotmail.com

Daytona, Greater Portmore

St. Catherine