416 / 494
415
12.13.
Mr. Golding made it clear that, although Rev. Miller was a friend, he
had spoken with Rev. Miller in the context of his leadership of the National
Transformation Programme. Rev. Miller was approaching Coke on his own
initiative and had not sought Mr. Golding’s permission. Rev. Miller’s intervention
was described by Mr. Golding in this way –
“At his own initiative he had assisted the Police to take into
custody two of Coke’s relatives who the Police had indicated
were either wanted or persons of interest. And it was
against that background that he spoke with me about his
willingness to seek to have Coke surrender himself to the
Police as well.”
12.14.
Under cross-examination by Mrs. Samuels-Brown Q.C., Mr. Golding
testified that he did not consider the initiative of Rev. Miller “as being a law and
order restoration effort”. Speaking to the residual challenges facing the GoJ
after the operation, Mr. Golding said –
“A major part of [the challenges] had to do with seeking to
normalize relations between the citizens of West Kingston
and Tivoli Gardens in particular, and the security forces
taking into account the hurt and bitterness that many of
them felt because of how they felt they had been treated by
the security forces. That was a major challenge. It would
certainly have assisted in that endeavour if the issue of
Christopher Coke, the fact that he was wanted by the police,
the fact that he had eluded the security forces, if that issue
were removed. To the extent that Rev. Miller sought to
achieve that, felt that he could have achieved that, and had
demonstrated in terms of what I said earlier, that he might
have achieved that – it is something that I felt would be in
the best interests of the country.”
FINDINGS
12.15.
On the evidence adduced to the Commission of Enquiry, we
find that there was no direct communication during the period
24 August 2009 and May 2010 between Christopher Coke and any
official of the Government of Jamaica. The evidence of Coke being