ZEEKS... scheduled to return to Jamaica Dec 22

HAVING got back the nearly $9 million the police confiscated from him a month ago, Matthew's Lane "don" Donald "Zeeks" Phipps had his passport returned temporarily yesterday so he could fly to Guyana on what his lawyer called business "of great importance".

Phipps was scheduled to have boarded a BWIA jet at Kingston's Norman Manley Airport for the island-hopping flight to Georgetown, the Guyana capital, after Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey agreed to the release of his travel document.

But the Observer could not confirm last night whether he made the trip and Phipps' lawyer, Churchill Neita, said he did not know.

"I made an application to the court for his passport to be returned," Neita told the Observer. "He had to travel; it was a matter of great importance."

Phipps' passport was seized and he was ordered to report to the police three times weekly after his arrest in October for the illegal possession of ammunition, pharmaceuticals and marijuana.

Neita declined to say what business Phipps had to attend to abroad, but said he was scheduled to return to Jamaica on December 22 and had been ordered to turn over his passport to the court the following day.

A small, physically-unimposing man with a seemingly retiring personality, Phipps hardly cuts the expected figure of an area leader in a tough downtown enclave that votes for the People's National Party in the West Kingston constituency of the Opposition leader, Edward Seaga.

But Phipps' frame and halting speech belie the authority he carries in his community, and downtown generally, which became apparent in 1998 when riots broke out in the old section of the capital after Zeeks was arrested for allegedly orchestrating the beating and detention of men who had broken the community's code of conduct.

With rumours swirling that Phipps had been injured in custody and with crowds gathering at the lock-up, the police brought Phipps to the second-floor balcony of a police station and gave him a megaphone to address the crowd, telling them that he was all right.

Phipps appeared to have been losing some of his potency recently, facing challenges from split-off factions in his community, which the police believe contributed to a spate of mid-year violence downtown.

In an October 17 operation in the community, police and soldiers raided a shop - Son of the Lane - owned by Phipps and said they found 26 rounds of .45 bullets, marijuana and 44 bottles of a pharmaceutical substance used to treat racehorses.

A further search of Phipps' home turned up J$6 million in cash and a further US$43,000.

Phipps was arrested for the ammunition and drugs, and spent a week in jail before receiving bail of $1.5 million. His bail was held up because he had to retrieve his passport from an embassy here.

Police confiscated the cash, but the money was returned last weekend after the police apparently concluded that they had no basis on which to hold it.

Phipps is to return to court on January 11 to answer the drug and ammunition charges.

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