Dudus confident - Coke attorney points to Manatt report in wiretap defence
Published:Thursday | June 16, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
Despite languishing in a United States maximum security lock-up for the past year, alleged crime boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is reportedly still in good spirits and confident that he will be freed of the drug and gunrunning charges against him.
"He is a very strong person who believes the truth will come out," Coke's lead attorney, Stephen Rosen, told The Gleaner yesterday.
"He has a tremendous amount of confidence in me and we are doing everything possible to clear his name," Rosen added.
Coke is slated to return to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on July 8 for a scheduling hearing, at which time a date for the start of his trial could be set.
But even before he returns to court, his lawyers are stepping up efforts to ensure that controversial wiretap information is not admitted into the trial.
On Tuesday, Rosen filed a memorandum of law in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to exclude the wiretaps being used against Coke.
Yesterday, Rosen argued that the secret memoranda of understanding (MOUs) signed by former Minister of National Security Dr Peter Phillips allowed the US to breach the constitutional rights of Coke and scores of other Jamaicans.
The US authorities relied heavily on the wiretap information to request the extradition of Coke and those conversations were expected to play a major role in attempts by the Americans to convict him.
But Rosen is arguing that even though the wiretaps were sanctioned by the Jamaican Supreme Court, they should not be admitted into evidence during the trial because the court was misled.
"On May 31, the United States government declassified the MOUs which were signed in 2004 between the Jamaican, British and American governments which allowed these foreign states to eavesdrop on every Jamaican," Rosen charged.
He said the declassified MOUs show that the American government gave Jamaica US$3.2 million in cash plus equipment to establish this covert wiretap unit.
Lack of honesty
"So when the applications to eavesdrop on Mr Coke were made to the Supreme Court, nobody told the judge or judges that the information would be listened to or be shared with foreign security agencies and the court clearly indicated the four persons who should get the information," argued Rosen.
"When the applications were made, there was a complete lack of honesty as the court was not told that the US would be listening in and using the recordings to develop prosecutions against Jamaicans in the US," Rosen added.
Against that background, Rosen endorsed the ruling of the commissioners of the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry that Coke's constitutional rights were breached.
"The fact that the wiretaps were in breach of Jamaica's Constitution, then the commissioners were 100 per cent correct that his constitutional rights were breached," Rosen said.
In their report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the commissioner's ruled that "the supply of Coke's telephone records to the US government agencies was, therefore, a breach of his constitutional rights".
The report stated: "It follows that the memoranda of understanding, upon which the US government relied, were not in keeping with (the Interception of Communications) Act."
With that background, Rosen has contracted three of Jamaica's leading legal minds to assist him.
Carolyn Reid-Cameron and Chukwuemeka Cameron are representing Rosen in Jamaica while Priya Levers is acting as a consultant.
Rosen is going to the US court, urging it to reject the wiretap evidence on the basis of the Fifth Amendment of the constitution which provides protection for anyone being tried in an American court under the Due Process Clause.
Despite reports in the local electronic media yesterday, the court had not ruled on the motion.