LEADERS OF 14 local business, civic, human rights and church organisations want the Police Public Complaints Authority and the Bureau of Special Investigations to speed up their probe of the March 14 killing by the police of seven men in Braeton, south St. Catherine.
In a joint statement they issued yesterday, they urged also that this be done in a transparent and thorough manner to enable the Jamaican people to have full confidence in the capacity of the legal system to operate in a just manner.
In directing their questions to K.D. Knight, Minister of National Security and Justice, they urged the PPCA and the BSI to disclose whether completed reports and statements from the investigations have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions or to the Coroner.
The PPCA was set up to conduct independent investigation of alleged police excesses, and the BSI was formed last year to investigate police shootings.
The group said it wanted to know whether statements have been taken from all members of the police party involved in the March 14 shooting and whether there are outstanding statements, and what the BSI and the PPCA had done to collect them.
Also, they asked whether the BSI had received the autopsy report from Dr. Royston Clifford,
consultant forensic pathologist to the government.
"It is in this country's best interest to ensure that justice is not only done, but seen to be done. What is at stake is the legitimacy of the rule of law," they said.
The statement was signed by the heads of Jamaicans for Justice, the Jamaican Bar Association, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (1988) Ltd., the Jamaica Exporters' Association, the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the Jamaica Bankers' Association, the Jamaica Employers' Federation, the Small Business Association of Jamaica, the Guild of Graduates at the University of the West Indies, Transparency International (Jamaica), the August Town Sports and Community Development Foundation, and Christians United for Love, Justice and Peace.
On March 14, this year, about 60 policemen and policewomen led by Senior Supt. Reneto Adams, head of the Crime Management Unit, went to a house in Fifth Seal Way, Braeton.
They said that men in the house fired on them as they approached the house and that they fired back killing all seven on the spot.
Dr. Peter Leth, a Danish pathologist, of Amnesty International, observed autopsies done on the seven bodies by a government pathologist. Dr. Leth subsequently reported that based on his observation, it would appear that the men were shot in cold blood, some having bullet wounds, apparently inflicted at close range, to the head.
Deputy Commissioner Owen Clunie who is in charge of the BSI, said yesterday he expected the Braeton file to be completed before month's end and to be sent to the DPP. He declined to comment on whether the BSI had received the forensic report, neither would he say whether all the statements from police personnel involved in the killings had been collected.
"Once the file is completed it means you have collected statements from the police personnel involved and all the civilian witnesses," he said.
Justice Carl Patterson, PPCA chairman, said yesterday that he had received a copy of the forensic report, but he was not prepared to disclose its findings. He said his office was conducting investigations which are at an advanced stage.
"It's not the ordinary run-of-the-mill investigations," he said. "Dozens of policemen were involved and statements have to be taken from all of them and their weapons have to be tested," he told The Gleaner.
Justice Patterson stressed that that was not the only case the PPCA was investigating. "In due course the matter will be completed and sent to the DPP to decide what course of action is to be taken," he said.
In April nine private sector organisations including JFJ, JEA, PSOJ and Christians United for Love Justice and Peace, issued a joint statement calling for the removal from active duty of police personnel involved in the March 14 killing, pending a coroner's inquest into the killings.
