Two new witnesses to face enquiry
Published:Monday | March 21, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Two persons who appeared to have played peripheral roles in the events leading up to the extradition of accused drug don Christopher 'Dudus' Coke are scheduled to face the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry today.
Marcia Beverley and Verna McGaw could not have known that they would have been hauled before the commission when it started two months ago.
However, 11th-hour testimony from Justice Minister and Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne catapulted the two into the hot seat that has scalded many in the past.
McGaw is a former typist in the justice ministry and Marcia Beverley, a consultant.
When Beverley, a veteran civil servant, takes the oath, the focus will be on whether Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor had approached her to prepare the relevant extradition-related documents.
Tendering bad advice
Lightbourne has accused Taylor of tendering bad advice to the United States in relation to the extradition request.
The justice minister contended that given the urgency that was attached to matter, the US should have been informed to submit a provisional warrant, which would have landed Coke in jail with immediate effect.
However, under cross-examination from Lord Anthony Gifford, the attorney representing the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions late last week, Lightbourne could not say why the matter was urgent.
The US would, under the law, be given 60 days after the provisional hearing to submit a formal extradition request for Coke.
The source of a controversial email triggered a verbal scramble late last week.
McGaw has been called in to clarify her role as well in the dispatching of the email, allegedly sent by her on Lightbourne's behalf to Harold Brady, the attorney who engaged the services of the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in late 2009.
The email contained an update on a visit by a Jamaican delegation, comprising Brady and Dr Ronald Robinson, the former state minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.
Added importance
Robinson was asked to resign as the ill-fated efforts to get the US to change its mind about the Coke extradition began to take their effect on the Golding administration.
McGaw's impending testimony has taken on added importance in light of an attempted search on the office of Solicitor General Douglas Leys by police, purportedly from the Cybercrimes Unit, allegedly in search of fraudulent emails on Leys' computers.
Although the police have since apologised, Leys' attorney, Oliver Smith, has insisted that a probe be undertaken to ascertain who summoned the police.
Frank Phipps, the attorney representing the Jamaica Labour Party, who found himself in the middle of the mystery after he gave Smith a message soon after the police went into Leys' office, maintained that Lighbourne knew nothing of a police raid.