ATTORNEY General A J Nicholson Friday fired a fresh salvo of accusations against Amnesty International, saying that the human rights watchdog’s claim of new evidence in the two year-old Braeton Seven Killings was “highly suspicious”.

Nicholson, in a peppery presentation in the Senate, also scolded Amnesty for suggesting at a news conference Thursday that the Braeton case was closed.

“I don’t know that the Braeton case is closed,” Nicholson, who is also the justice minister, said, as he outlined measures taken by the Government to reduce incidents of police brutality and protect citizens’ rights.

According to Nicholson, the Government had embarked on a number of measures over the years to protect citizens against police excesses, including establishing a Police Public Complaints Authority and setting up a number of new courts to speed up the processing of cases.

Against the backdrop of the current visit of two Amnesty officials who have pointed to police culpability in the deaths of the seven youths at Braeton on March 14, 2001, Nicholson admitted that there were weaknesses in Jamaica’s systems of policing, but argued that the administration was open to criticism and committed to the protection of its citizens.

On Thursday, Piers Bannister, a researcher for the London-based Amnesty, 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 journalists at The Courtleigh Hotel in Kingston.

The seven — between the ages of 15 and 20 — were shot dead by the police at a house in Braeton, St Catherine on March 14, 2001.

Police said that they died in a “shoot-out” which started when someone fired at them from a window. A gun recovered from the group, they said, belonged to a slain cop who was killed inside the Rock Hall Police Station in rural St Andrew a week before.

They also said that among the seven were the killers of a school principal who was chased and shot dead during a robbery in Portmore a few nights before.

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

Nicholson told the Senate Friday that the file from the coroner’s inquest into the Braeton killings was being prepared to be sent to the director of public prosecutions for his ruling.

“I’m not even saying that the papers should not have reached the DPP already,” Nicholson said. “I’m not even trying to find an excuse. “But the point that I wish to make is that we have now come up with this new evidence, which, by the way, is highly suspicious.”

The “new evidence” which Nicholson questioned was a claim by Bannister that a British firearms expert, Jon Vogel, had found bullet holes measuring 9 millimetres in the back room of the Braeton house during a visit there last Tuesday.

According to Bannister, the back room was filled with blood, but no policeman had reported that any of the seven youths were shot there.

Nicholson said there was more to the Braeton killings than met the eye and suggested that a prominent person was involved in the incident.

“There was a phone call from Braeton that night… an attorney-at-law,” he said, without elaborating.

He warned against “trying the case in the media”, saying that it was “a dangerous course” and that countries that had gone that route had discovered that it was dangerous.

Nicholson was one of three Government ministers who Wednesday blasted Amnesty for producing what they said was an unfair and offensive critique of Jamaica’s human rights record.

The broadside against Amnesty came after Bannister and his colleague, Olivia Streater, met and shared their report on the Braeton killings with Nicholson, Security Minister Peter Phillips, and Foreign Minister K D Knight.

“The report flies in the face of evidence the Government is taking to deal effectively with police excesses,” said Phillips, who added that it stooped to “character assassination” for having suggested that the chief prosecutor was guilty of corruption.

The ministers complained that Amnesty has “consistently sought to impugn the Government in its reports”, and stated their objection to a conclusion in the document that it is “extremely unlikely” that the director of public prosecutions would bring charges against police officers.

“The ministers concluded that it is an unwarranted accusation, bearing in mind that several policemen have been indicted on offences ranging from dereliction of duty to murder,” a foreign ministry statement said.

On Friday, Nicholson called on the society, including the media and private sector, to support the current anti-crime initiatives and the police. He said he wanted to “live in a nice and clean society” and that the Government bore the primary responsibility for ensuring this.