KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) " Former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding testified Monday that he personally knew an underworld boss who ran a notorious slum fiefdom from his parliamentary constituency but stopped communicating with him roughly three years before the U.S. sought his extradition.
Testifying before a fact-finding commission examining a bloody May 2010 raid by security forces, Golding said he "cut off all communication" with Christopher "Dudus" Coke in December 2007 when he was informed by police that gangsters were seeking refuge in his slum stronghold. As a West Kingston community "don," Coke had long acted as an ad hoc civic leader at the same time he led the feared "Shower Posse" crime gang.
Golding said he was "not aware" if other officials had any conversations with Coke after the U.S. requested his extradition on gun and drug trafficking charges in August 2009.
The U.S. Justice Department had described Coke as one of the world's most dangerous drug barons. But Golding's administration resisted the extradition request for nine months, arguing Coke's indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence. The stance strained relations with Washington, which questioned Jamaica's reliability as an ally in the fight against drug trafficking.
When Golding's administration reluctantly dropped its resistance to the extradition, the May 2010 hunt for Coke in West Kingston killed at least 76 civilians over a couple of days. The country's former public defender has said 44 of those may have been unjustifiable homicides. One soldier was killed.