DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry yesterday told the Supreme Court that his office was having difficulty finding a prosecutor to represent the crown in the case against six cops.

The six – former head of the Crime Management Unit Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, corporals Shenie Lyons and Patrick Coke, constables Devon Bernard, Leford Gordon and Roderick Collier – are charged with non-capital murder arising out of an incident in the district of Crawle, Clarendon in May 2002.

Pantry told Justice Kaye Beckford that the senior staff compliment of the Office of the DPP had dwindled because of recent resignations. He asked for the trial to begin on November 30 this year. Defence lawyers representing the policemen opposed Pantry’s request and recommended that he prosecute the case himself.

Two women, Lewena Thompson and Angela Richards, along with Kirk Gordon and Matthew James, were killed when cops from the now-disbanded CMU went into the rustic farming village in search of Bashington ‘Chen Chen’ Douglas, who the police said headed an extortion ring based in Clarendon.

The police said gunmen opened fire at them from a house in the district and they returned the fire. When the shooting ended, the four were found dead inside the one-bedroom dwelling, the cops reported.

Residents of Crawle refuted the police’s version of the incident and human rights lobby groups called for investigators outside the police force to probe the fatal shootings.

Former police commissioner Francis Forbes called in detectives from Scotland Yard London, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Canadian Mounted Police, who collected statements and submitted case files to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Kent Pantry, who then ordered the arrest of the cops.

The accused policemen are all on $2 million bail. Their travel documents were ordered seized by the court.

walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com