Dudus' lawyers question relevance of experts

Lawyers representing Christopher 'Dudus' Coke have challenged plans by prosecutors to call expert witnesses to testify about three areas during his trial slated to begin on September 12 in the United District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The prosecutors want experts to testify about the nature and history of Jamaican criminal organisations and their leadership, specifically those located in Kingston.

In addition, the prosecutors want an expert to state the price of certain types of narcotics at various locations, including the US, Jamaica and the United Kingdom.

Another expert has been selected by the prosecutors to speak to the price of firearms and the means by which they are trafficked from the US to the Caribbean.

No relevance

But Coke's lawyers say the prosecutors have no relevant reason for discussing the scope of an organisation in Jamaica.

"The government is attempting to convict the defendant of being a gang member under an indictment where the organisational activity is irrelevant to the charged crime," Coke's lawyers argue in a motion filed on Monday.

"To add insult to injury, the government wants to discuss the irrelevant organisations' connection to crimes in the United Kingdom," added Coke's lawyers.

The lawyers said although Coke is charged with committing crimes in the US while he was in Jamaica, there is no relevancy to anything that might have happened in the UK.

"For identical reasons, the government should not be permitted to talk about the value of narcotics in any other country than the United States and Jamaica," added the lawyers.

According to the lawyers: "The request that the jury hears the routes of narcotics throughout the world and all the countries of the Caribbean exposes the fact that the government desires to prosecute the status of drug trafficking ... rather than prosecuting defendant Coke of particular conduct that he, himself, committed."