Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke has been sentenced to 23 years in US prison

[malaise]

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=37724
<snip>
Confessed Jamaican gangster Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke has been sentenced to 23 years in prison.

The sentence was handed down a short while ago in the Southern District Court in Lower Manhattan in the United States.

The 43-year-old was facing a maximum sentence of 23 years.

Coke's fall from the undisputed don of the Jamaican underworld to a US felon started in September 2009, with an extradition request from the United States for the man, who was a patron saint to the residents of Tivoli Gardens, a menace to law enforcement officials and a powerful figure to local politicians.

The extradition request led to a protracted dispute between the governments of Jamaica and the US.

The dispute lasted for almost a year and ended with then Prime Minister Bruce Golding acceding to the US request and sending both the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force into Tivoli Gardens to arrest Coke in May 2010.

The ensuing standoff between the armed forces and gunmen resulted in the death of at least 73 persons, one soldier and many unanswered questions.

Coke was not captured in the offensive, but he was held about a month later, allegedly disguised with a woman's wig, in the company of clergyman Al Miller.

He waived his right to fight his extradition to the US and has been awaiting trial and sentencing since.
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[malaise]

1. This is everywhere - notorious is the word

http://www.google.com.jm/#q=christopher+dudus+coke&hl=en&prmd=imvnsu&source=lnms&tbm=nws&ei=2DPST7G-CY6Y8gSf8oi5Aw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=4&ved=0CFoQ_AUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=67969afbe95c6c41&biw=751&bih=332

[Solly Mack]

2. Thanks, malaise

For the update.

[malaise]

3. Here's a good link from the Guardian

except that they fail to point out that none of this would have been possible without our version of Jamaica-US drugs facilitated by the same folks as Iran-Contra in the 1980s ( Reagan/Bush/Seaga and Showers' Posse led by Dudus father).

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/08/christopher-dudus-coke-jail-term?newsfeed=true
<snip>
"With his conviction, Coke is no longer able to traffick drugs in the
US, move guns across our border, or terrorize people, and with today's sentence, he will now spend a very long time in prison for his crimes," said Preet Bharara, US attorney for Manhattan.

Coke's sentencing brings to a formal end his violent reign that last almost 20 years with the complicity of Jamaican political interests. Before he gave himself up in June 2010 he had been on the US department of justice's list of the world's most dangerous drug traffickers.

He ran the neighbourhood of Tivoli Gardens on the west side of Kingston as a sort of walled military encampment within which his rule was unchallenged. Through his gang, the Shower Posse – a reference to its members fondness for spraying people with bullets – aka the Presidential Click, he ran a state within a state.

He had his own small army of up to 200 soldiers, and a makeshift jail in which he dispensed summary justice. He even organised schooling and sustenance for poor local families, rendering him at one level enormously popular.

[Solly Mack]

4. Thanks!

Yeah - the press forgets a lot background details when it wants to forget.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, malaise.

[malaise]

6. Here's Mattathias Schwartz piece in the New Yorker

He's been raising the most serious questions

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/06/christopher-coke-tivoli-massacre.html
<snip>
Did seventy-three civilians have to die for the arrest of one drug trafficker, no matter how powerful?

The U.S. government knows, but it isn’t saying. The Drug Enforcement Administration has live video of the operation, shot from a Department of Homeland Security plane that was flying over Tivoli Gardens as the killings took place. The footage could provide invaluable assistance to Earl Witter, the Jamaican official who has been charged with investigating the massacre. But more than two years after the assault, the D.E.A. still refuses to release it.

However, a State Department cable obtained by The New Yorker shows the force with which the Jamaican Army struck Coke’s neighborhood, and the U.S. government’s knowledge of it. Sent shortly after the conflict, it says that “the JDF [Jamaican Army] fired mortars and then used bulldozers to break through the heavy barricades.”

“I do not know whether the J.D.F. used mortar fire,” former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who was in office during the May, 2010, crisis, said by e-mail. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the cable. A statement from the J.D.F. confirmed that the Army had fired mortars, though it said the weapons were used to confuse gunmen. “Mortar rounds were fired into open areas as part of a diversion,” the statement says in part. “At no time were persons or buildings targeted.” The J.D.F. did not respond to questions regarding the number of rounds fired, and whether they were smoke, illuminating, or high-explosive rounds.

The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is “to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards.” What was the D.H.S. doing in Jamaica, hundreds of miles from U.S. shores, passing on intelligence to Jamaican forces as they stormed Tivoli Gardens? Was intelligence-sharing the full extent of our government’s involvement with the operation? If U.S. forces saw evidence of the massacre as it was unfolding, did they make any attempt to intervene? And given that we were the ones who insisted on Coke’s arrest, what are our obligations to the families of innocent people killed in the process?

Releasing the Tivoli video would be a good start to answering these questions. The U.S. government should share what it knows.