[NYTr] Grenada: Bishops Killer's in Emotional Re-sentencing Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:29:22 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit InterPress Service - Jun 28, 2007 http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38352 GRENADA: Bishop's Killers in Emotional Resentencing By Peter Ischyrion ST. GEORGE'S, Jun 28 (IPS) - The ghost of Maurice Bishop continues to haunt Grenada 24 years after he was placed against a wall and executed along with members of his cabinet. The killings ended the island's brief flirtation with a left-wing government that had come to power four years earlier by deposing the eccentric prime minister, Sir Eric Gairy, in the English-speaking Caribbean's first change of government by the bullet rather than the ballot. And as Justice Francis Belle sentenced Bishop's deputy Bernard Coard to 40 years hard labour on Wednesday, the events of October 1983 came flooding back to an island still unable to close this dark chapter of its history. The United States invaded Grenada six days after Bishop's execution and deposed Coard. This week, Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said he had been unsuccessful in getting Washington to help locate the bodies of Bishop, his foreign minister Unison Whiteman, the education and women's affairs minister Jacqueline Creft, the minister of housing Norris Bain and others, so that their relatives could have some closure. "It is important that the bodies be found so that the families can begin to heal," Mitchell said, noting that the re-sentencing hearing had revived "memories of the tragic events". Mitchell said he was also concerned about the psychological state of the families. The relatives had organised themselves into a protest group that met daily outside the specially constituted court for the past eight days of the re-sentencing hearing, ordered by the London-based Privy Council. Earlier this year, the British law lords ruled that the death sentences originally imposed on Coard and the 12 others convicted in connection with the killings were unconstitutional, in turn invalidating the process by which those sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment by the Grenadian authorities. During the re-sentencing hearing, some relatives overcome by the heart-wrenching details of the deaths shouted abuse at the convicted men, and in the case of Peter Bain, whose father was among those killed in 1983, threw water on the defendants. Another stood up and shouted: "Criminals, murderers, the re-sentencing is not for all you to be released, is for all you to be hanged". Bain later told reporters that his action was the result of "the hurt and anger" he felt when he heard prosecutors describe how his brother had been shot and his body burnt. The families had also sent a letter to Governor General Sir Daniel Williams seeking his intervention when the judge refused to recuse himself after questions emerged regarding his past association with a 1970s political movement in Barbados with ties to Coard. The judge told the court that he had been aware of the situation prior to the re-sentencing hearing that started on Jun. 18 and had discussed it with his superiors. He said he would follow the guidelines set out by the Privy Council. The high-powered defence team argued that the convicted men had "come to Grenada on their knees..." "Is Grenada going to turn their backs on their very own when their very own come asking forgiveness?" asked Jamaican attorney Howard Hamilton. British Queen Counsel Edward Fitzgerald, who led the 16-member defence team, said that the convicts have insisted that their actions did not constitute murder. "They continue to maintain their innocence. They have a political and moral philosophy for what happened that day. They are sorry for what happened. Nothing I say could take away the pain, suffering and tragic loss of lives," he said. "For a period of one hour or more on Oct. 19, 1983, this occurred in the context of an escalating crisis which got out of control. Both sides resorted to a violent confrontation and then blood flowed." He told the court that following the arrest of his clients by the U.S. military and the imposition of the death sentence, the convicted men had spent four and a half years on death row with two near executions in 1991. The defence used statements from a number of people, including U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Walters, to support the release of the convicted men, especially Coard, who they said is going blind. But the Director of Public Prosecutions Christopher Nelson argued that the crimes committed were serious ones and deserved a sentence no less than life imprisonment, since the death penalty is no longer possible. "This is not a payroll board sitting...this is a judicial determination for a heinous crime, a grave crime for which the jury said they were all guilty of." Former Trinidad and Tobago attorney-general and human rights lawyer, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, agreed there was need for "serious punishment". "The court has a responsibility to protect the public interest and in summing up I ask that the sentence be one of life with consecutive serving for each of the eleven counts," he said. In his ruling to a hushed court on Wednesday, the judge said he was convinced that the convicted men had shown remorse and were not a risk to society. "Having looked at the previous good character and good behaviour in prison in all cases, I have taken this into account and have decided to give 40 years, which is the maximum for two consecutive life sentences in some jurisdictions," he said. In sentencing the 13 men individually, the judge said consideration should be given to the 24 years already spent in jail. As a result, Cecil Prime, Lester Redhead and Christopher Stroude who were sentenced to 30 years would be released on Wednesday, while the judge also recommended that the health of John Ventour and Colville McBarnette be reviewed by the Prison Board over a six- and 12-month period. He said the authorities should also consider remission for former army chief, Hudson Austin for the time he spent rebuilding the prison following the passage of Hurricane Ivan a few years ago. Of the 17 people convicted of the 1983 killings, Coard's wife Phyllis was released in 2000 on medical grounds, while three others were released last December. (END/2007) * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================