ADAMS. when I am informed that I will be charged, I will call the press and make a statement to the nation

RENETO Adams, the colourful tough cop who headed the controversial Crime Management Unit (CMU), has promised Jamaica the "mother of all trials" if he is charged with murder over last May's police killings at Crawle.

Adams, a senior superintendent, could not confirm that he and four other policemen are to be arrested and charged, perhaps as soon as today, as has been rumoured since the weekend.

Although he had heard the rumours, as well as news reports to this effect, neither he nor his lawyers had been advised of such an intention of a ruling on the case by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Adams said.

Lucius Thomas, the deputy commissioner of police in charge of crime, told the Observer that he had received no directive from the DPP.

"I am not aware of any file coming to hand from the DPP concerning the investigations, therefore, I cannot speak to the matter," Thomas said.

Bryan Sykes, the deputy DPP who was assigned the Crawle case after the police investigations, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

But a defiant Adams, who has a knack for showmanship, insisted that his case would be no small matter should he be charged.

"If I am charged, this trial will be the mother of all trials," he said. "And when I am informed that I will be charged, I will call the press and make a statement to the nation."

I would have "a million words to say", Adams declared.
The CMU was a squad established at the height of a crime wave in 2001, charged with targeting extortionists, carjackers and 'dons'.

Although opinion polls showed that Adams, who often dressed in SWAT squad gear and talked tough to criminals, was immensely popular, he and his group were often criticised by human rights groups, accused of extra-judicial killings and other excesses.

The squad was disbanded, and Adams sent to a desk job at the Mobile Reserve Unit, shortly after the Crawle, Clarendon incident when the police were accused of murdering four people, including two women, during an operation in the rural district. Adams unsuccessfully challenged in the courts the decision by police chief Francis Forbes to disband the CMU and assign him a desk job at the Mobile Reserve Unit.

The police had reported that the Crawle victims died in a shoot-out when CMU members came under fire during a search for a Bashington Douglas, also known as "Chen Chen", who was wanted for murder and shootings in Spanish Town, St Catherine. Douglas' girlfriend was one of those killed.

Late last year six policemen who were part of a March 2002 CMU operation in Braeton, St Catherine were charged with the murder of six youths killed during what the police claimed was a firefight.

Adams who testified at a coroner's inquest to leading the squad and advising the young men that he had warrant for their arrests, was not charged. Police officials say his gun was not fired.

The coroner's jury had, in a majority decision, ruled that no one was criminally responsible for the killings, but the office of the DPP later ruled that the six policemen should be charged.

In the Crawle case, which, like the Braeton incident, became a cause celebre for local human rights group and Amnesty International, police chief Francis Forbes invited the London Metropolitan police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigations to help in the investigation.

Adams refused to co-operate with the foreign investigators, saying that they had no jurisdiction in Jamaica.

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