AMNESTY International yesterday called Jamaica’s investigation into the ‘Braeton Seven’ shootings “deeply flawed”, and pledged to help the victims’ families lodge complaints before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Piers Bannister, a researcher for the London-based human rights watchdog, criticised authorities for failing to prosecute a single police officer in the controversial case, even though evidence “overwhelmingly points to the young men having been extra-judicially executed”.

“There is enough evidence to place before a jury and judge,” he told a news conference at the Courtleigh Hotel in Kingston.

Bannister said Amnesty would seek redress in an international court because it was “not optimistic” authorities would prosecute the case given their tolerance of illegal killings by security forces.

His remarks came on the eve of the second anniversary of the police killing of the seven young men.

The seven — between the ages of 15 and 20 — were shot dead by the police at a house in Braeton.

Police said that the seven died in a pre-dawn “shoot-out”, which had started when someone fired at them from a window. A gun recovered from the group, they said, belonged to a slain police officer — one of three people whom gunmen had recently killed in Rock Hall, rural St Andrew.

But residents said they heard the victims begging for their lives before they were shot.

All seven were killed outright with a total of 46 gunshot wounds, 15 of which were to the head, according to Amnesty’s investigation.

Bannister also accused authorities of failing to properly investigate the case, secure the crime scene, or perform proper autopsies.

He said he was shocked that on a recent visit to the crime scene, he found spent shell casings and other evidence lying about

“From the start, they were not taking the investigation seriously,” he said.

Nevertheless, Bannister said a strong case can be made against the police based on eyewitness accounts, police statements, and reports from independent firearms and forensics experts hired by Amnesty.

Referring to a report from firearms expert Jon Vogel, a UK police officer, Bannister noted that officers had claimed that police had fired a “muzzle flashes” as they entered the dark house. It was not believable, he said, given the well-aimed bullet patterns on the seven.

Vogel, referring to multiple gunshot wounds to the heads of Curtis Smith and Andre Virgo, both 20, wrote: “It was not possible to achieve the pattern of gunshot wounds… in the manner described by the police in their statements. I suspect that their heads were made temporarily immobile while the shots were fired at relatively close proximity.”

Leonard Wilson, the father of one of the young men — Tamayo Wilson, 20 — said his son was innocent and called the investigation a “fiasco”. He said Jamaica needed an independent agency to investigate shootings.

At the same time he praised Amnesty for their help, saying they had readily provided the victims’ families with support, including an independent pathologist to examine the evidence.

Bannister’s release of the report, “The killing of the Braeton Seven — A justice system on trail,” came a day after he had presented Amnesty’s finding to National Security Minister Peter Phillips; KD Knight, the foreign minister; and Justice Minister A J Nicholson.

The ministers had described report as unfair and “offensive”. But Banister yesterday said, “We are not an organisation that dresses up our language”.

While noting Jamaica had a high-crime rate, with 1,045 murders last year, Bannister said the violent environment could not explain the number of people being killed by police.