Andem’s son released from SOE detention

The son of incarcerated former notorious gang leader Joel Andem was on Saturday released by police after being detained under the State of Emergency (SOE) recently imposed in sections of Kingston and St Andrew.

He was in custody for nearly two weeks without being charged for a criminal offence.

The alleged interim leader of the Landlease Gang, 21-year-old Tamoya Andem was freed following an order from the Review Board for the State of Emergency for him to be charged or released by 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. 

Police had taken Andem into custody on December 6, on the same day the SOE was imposed, based on intelligence that he is allegedly leading a criminal organisation and is involved in criminal activities, including possession of an illegal weapon and ammunition. 

The police, who also claimed that he was a threat to public safety, had reportedly garnered information that Andem and his associates were planning a reprisal attack on members of the Mad and Mean Gang, following an attack on one of his alleged cronies. 

According to the police, Andem, since his release from prison in October, has been walking around in the Land Lease community firing shots and driving fear into the residents. 

Attorneys-at-law Courtney Rowe and John Jacobs, who are representing Andem, had made a habeas corpus application for his release on December 13,  in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court, after he had been in custody for a week and was not charged. But the investigator had requested additional time to conduct a question and answer session, which was granted.

However, Andem's case was reviewed on Saturday by the panel who made the order for him to either be released or charged. 

Rowe told The Gleaner that the police had asked the review panel for more time to collect statements and were told to do so by Saturday evening. 

According to the lawyer, the police had not served his client with any detention notice when he was detained and only served him two days before the panel was to meet. 

Andem and Zydan Douglas were freed of drug charges in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on October 19. 

Both men were charged with possession of ganja, dealing and trafficking in ganja last May. 

The prosecution led evidence that on May 13, 2021, the men were passengers in a motor car travelling along Derrymore Road in St Andrew in which police found 100 pounds of ganja in a bag on the back seat of the car and six other bags in the trunk. 

But the men denied knowing that ganja was inside the car, claiming they had just been picked up by the driver and a passenger who was in the vehicle. 

The judge, in freeing the men, said the smell of ganja alone was not sufficient in law to find them guilty. 

The passenger and the driver had pleaded guilty to the charges.

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