EDITORIAL - More cause for Manatt/Coke investigation

Every time Bruce Golding opens his mouth on the Christopher Coke/Manatt, Phelps & Phillips scandal, he pushes his foot in deeper - to his personal discomfort, we suspect, and the embarrassment of the country, we are certain.

So, it is hard to absorb the prime minister's painful disingenuity last week on the US$15,000 payment in mid-March by Harold Brady's law firm to Manatt, the American law firm whose engagement Mr Golding approved to lobby the Obama administration to go soft on the Coke extradition.

That contract, entered into last year by Mr Brady, was ended in February after person or persons in Jamaica had already paid Manatt nearly US$50,000 for their efforts. This latest payment, Mr Golding suggested to journalists, was the negotiated cost to pull out of the deal.

He said: "Our understanding is that a payment was made by Mr Harold Brady as part of the termination of the contract ... . Mr Brady made it. It had nothing to do with the party."

This, of course, rings hollow, especially, Mr Golding's suggestion of ignorance.

It is useful to recall that Coke was a reputed gun and drug smuggler and don of Tivoli Gardens in Mr Golding's west Kingston constituency. For nine months, the Jamaican Government resisted his extradition to the United States, until civil society organisations demanded the prime minister's resignation, having discovered that he had lied about the extent of his knowledge of, and involvement in, Manatt's lobbying.

Denied any involvement

Manatt had always insisted that it worked on behalf of the Jamaican Government, having been engaged by Mr Brady, who was a consultant to the Government. At first, Mr Golding denied any involvement whatsoever, but then suggested that Mr Brady had acted on his own account, but had tried to get Jamaican authorities involved via the island's solicitor general.

Then, we were told that Mr Brady really represented people in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who wanted to end a dispute between Kingston and Washington over the operation of its extradition treaty.

Finally, Mr Golding admitted to having sanctioned the engagement of Manatt, but as leader of the JLP, not as prime minister.

In between, it was disclosed that the attorney general had exchanged emails with Manatt, which could have suggested the Government's imprimatur.

The affair remains unsatisfactorily murky. Which is why we repeat our call for an independent inquiry into the whole mess, including the claim by the former police chief, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, that Coke was tipped off about the extradition request within 15 minutes of his (Lewin) briefing Security Minister Dwight Nelson that the documents were on their way from the United States.

The investigation/inquiry must get to the bottom of who paid Manatt, since, as Mr Golding claims, the JLP did not "advance any funds" for Harold Brady to pay the firm. Also, assuming that Mr Golding has latterly been telling the truth, the public should know by what process the Jamaican State abandoned its sovereign responsibility to pursue relations with foreign states and ceded them to a political party, whose members just happened to form the administration.

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