Women held with Dog Paw released

The two women who were found in the company of alleged gang leader Christopher 'Dog Paw' Linton were released yesterday after the police were unable to find evidence they had been willfully harbouring the wanted man.

Twenty-three-year-old Krystle Brown and 30-year-old Kedisha Lawrence were detained last week Monday during a joint police-military operation in which Linton was held.

When they appeared in court last week, they were both remanded until February 4 to allow the police more time to carry out their investigations.

Their lawyer, Valerie Neita Robertson, had maintained that the women were innocent and were being held hostage by Linton.

She said her clients would have been "released long ago if the police had been investigating properly".

Nonetheless, she said her clients were breathing a sigh of relief.

Neita Robertson has also taken issue with the wrecking fees being charged by a company which transported a car belonging to one of the women from Elletson Flats to the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate's Court.

She said the $13,000 fee amounts to extortion and has called for Police Commissioner Owen Ellington to look into the matter.

"We are not paying it. It is extortion! Somebody has to do something about it. The service is one the police use all the time and it cannot be right. You cannot do this to the citizens of this country," Neita Robertson declared. "There is nobody that would pay $13,000 for a fee from Elletson Flats to Half-Way Tree."