DPP to rule on wire-tapping this week

DIRECTOR OF Public Prosecutions (DPP), Kent Pantry, is expected to hand down a ruling this week on the alleged illegal wire-tapping of the phones of senior police officers and Government Ministers.

Almost two months ago, several tapes purportedly with the conversations of persons being probed for their involvement in a major narcotics operation in Jamaica, were sent to the DPP to assist him in his investigations.

The tapes were collected by former Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) officer Roderick "Jimmy" McGregor, who headed an intelligence unit based on Lady Musgrave Road in Kingston.

However, when The Gleaner contacted Mr. Pantry yesterday, he declined to say if he had heard all the tapes presented to him.

The controversy over allegations of illegal wiretaps and drug running erupted last October following a report in The Sunday Gleaner that drug traffickers were paying hefty sums to use Jamaica as a transshipment point.

Following the newspaper report, head of the police's Bureau of Special Investigations, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Owen Clunie, wrote Police Commissioner Francis Forbes telling him that he, Mr. Clunie, had learnt that his telephones had been tapped by an intelligence unit and that he was under investigation. Commissioner Forbes later confirmed that his deputy was being investigated.

It was also alleged that the telephone lines of other senior police officers, cabinet ministers, and inner-city dons had been wire-tapped.

Central to the reports of the wire-taps are allegations that senior police officers were performing guard service or safe passage service to Colombian drug traffickers through Jamaica to the Bahamas and the United States.

Cocaine, reportedly worth more than US$1 billion, was reported to have passed through Jamaica on its way to the Bahamas, with the security officers being paid as much as $2 million.

Prime Minister P.J. Patterson had in the meantime denied ordering the wiretaps of fellow Cabinet Ministers, and asked Mr. Pantry to investigate those allegations as well as those relating to drug trafficking, with help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Assistant Police Commissioner (ACP) Donald Walcott Brown, who had been initially asked by Commissioner Forbes to investigate the allegations of illegal wire-taps, was shot at his home in October, last year. ACP Brown is in charge of the National Firearm and Drug Intelligence Unit.

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