Deputy Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas (left), and head of the Constabulary Communication Network Superintendent Ionie Ramsay-Nelson field journalists' questions during yesterday's press conference to discuss the Christine English kidnapping.

The police yesterday said they had complied with a request from the family of kidnap victim Christine English to withdraw from the case and allow them to conduct their own negotiations with the abductors, who have now reduced their ransom demand to $2 million.

"The family has expressly asked that we do not interfere, and we have agreed to abide by these rules," Deputy Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas told journalists at a news conference at police headquarters in Kingston.

"While we are prepared to dedicate every resource to her safe and speedy return, we have agreed to yield to the expressed wishes of Mrs English's family that they be allowed to deal with all negotiations in this matter," added Thomas who emphasised that the request was not unusual.
"Family members, from time to time, ask that we do not interfere," he explained.

Thomas held his early afternoon news conference just three hours after a report surfaced from the St Catherine South Police division that 52 year-old Cleveland Largie was kidnapped by men travelling in a white Toyota motor car in the Portmore area of that parish.

But Thomas was unable to confirm the report that $300,000 was being asked in exchange for Largie's life.

"I am picking up the information just like you and no one can confirm it," he said.

However, a highly placed police source within the division told the Observer that shortly after 11:00 am Largie was standing outside a business establishment when the motor car, with several men aboard, approached him.

The police source said that the men engaged Largie in a lengthy conversation after which he went into the vehicle which headed toward Edgewater.

Since the time of the incident, police have been searching sections of St Catherine and Clarendon for Largie without success.

The Largie case came a full 13 hours after armed men ambushed Christine English and her husband, Bruce, as they arrived at their Gordon Town home.

Bruce English was knocked unconscious, while his wife was grabbed and placed in a car. Before they drove away, the kidnappers left a ransom note in English's trousers pocket. Their demand was $6 million.

Yesterday, Bruce English, who had spent most of Tuesday by the phone waiting to again be contacted by the kidnappers, declined to speak on the issue.

"No, I can't talk right now. Sorry," English told the Observer .
Deputy Commissioner Thomas said the police were unable to say how the family intended to proceed with their negotiations with the kidnappers.

However, he reported that the police learnt that Mrs English was "alive and well".

Thomas also said the police had no information to support a claim made by a cop Tuesday that the Joel Andem gang was responsible for the kidnapping.

"We have no such information. (And) if we have no such information, we can't look in that direction," Thomas said.

The gang, which operates mostly in the Kintyre area of rural St Andrew, had previously been fingered in another high-profile kidnapping, on July 31, 2001, of Sylvia Edwards, who owned and operated a Kingston service station at the intersection of Hagley and Waltham Park roads.

Edwards's kidnappers had asked for a ransom of $200,000. However, she was shot in the head and her body was f ound two days later in a shallow grave at University Heights in Papine.

Yesterday, Thomas, in response to journalists' query as to why Joel Andem has been able to elude the police for almost four years, said: "The Jamaica Constabulary Force as a unit with 10,000 members, depends solely on its community members and Jamaican citizens to come forward and co-operate and give the information that is necessary to rid our country of criminals."

Thomas also used the news conference to appeal to English's kidnappers to "see to her safe and speedy return to her family, the community she serves, and the many lives she has touched and (to the people who) depend on her generosity".

English, a British-born Jamaican national, has for many years been a social worker.

Addressing concerns that a kidnapping trend may be emerging, Thomas said: "We have seen over the last months, or year for that matter, only three or so cases that have been brought to book...

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