NEARLY a decade after the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) dispatched a team to the troubled South Central St Catherine constituency to assess what was then seen as a growing threat to the legitimacy of elected representatives by criminals, Klansman gang leader Donovan ‘Bulbie’ Bennett continues to haunt the party.

PNP chairman Robert Pickersgill said he could not recall the outcome of the Spanish Town probe, saying it happened long ago. But, last week, for the first time, another PNP official acknowledged that there was a link between Bennett and the party, though he sought to downplay it.

“I don’t think the PNP can say it had no connections with him,” Colin Campbell, deputy general secretary in charge of party communication, told the Sunday Observer.

“The extent of the connection is that the man was supporting the party. Bulbie was a general activist, like many others in different constituencies. In this case, however, his activism became a threat to the elected representative,” said Campbell.

Heather Robinson, who publicly denounced Bennett, says the PNP has never disclosed the findings of the investigation into the links of the gangster to the party, neither was she advised of the team’s mandate.

“I don’t know what those findings are. They were never brought to my attention,” she said in a telephone interview.

Robinson resigned as member of parliament after Bennett made her an offer to work with her to foster his ambitions of becoming the ‘number one don’ in Spanish Town.

At the time, he had been implicated in some 20 murders.

Campbell had said in a radio interview that the party had sent a fact -finding team to the constituency after Robinson’s now infamous parliamentary speech.

His admission on radio came after a meeting in October between political representatives of the two parties and members of the criminal One Order and Klansman gangs turned sour, resulting in the death of a One Order gang member, and shots being fired into the car of Central St Catherine MP Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange.

But last week, Campbell revised his on air admission, and now says officials did not go on a fact finding mission.

“I can’t remember all the persons who went, but she (Robinson) was supported by some of us who were state ministers at the time. But we went on a walk in the constituency to specific areas because this ‘out of order boy’ was telling the MP that she could not go here or there, and if she did what he was going to do,” said Campbell.

The ‘out of order boy’ to whom he referred was Bennett, who was killed October 31 in a Operation Kingfish raid on his house at Tanaky in Clarendon, and buried last weekend.

“Heather walked with us,” said Campbell.

During the tour, they met residents and heard voiced concerns, but they did not encounter Bennett, said the PNP deputy general secretary.

Other than Robinson, the PNP has never publicly distanced itself from Bennett or deny any connection with the slain criminal.

But Campbell told the Sunday Observer that the party has never encouraged criminal elements to be part of its membership and will never do so.

Still, the findings of the team remain a mystery. Pickersgill said he could not recall if they were discussed at any meetings where he was present.

“Some time has elapsed, you would have imagined, and I could not say off hand what the findings were. In fact, I’m not sure if I was party to any discussions where they were discussed,” the party chairman said.

Pickersgill also could not recall any forum where the issue might have been raised since Bennett’s demise.

Robinson resigned mid-way into her one term as member of parliament, after she told the nation that there was a growing annex between criminality and politics, and spoke of disagreements with some of her constituency colleagues over their relationships with “questionable” characters.

She told the Sunday Observer that the team sent into Spanish Town by her party, in which she retains membership and voting rights, went into the constituency one week before she resigned her seat and party positions.

Her speech was made about two to three weeks earlier.

“When I resigned as MP, I also resigned as the chairman of the constituency and as a member of the party’s National Executive Council,” she said.

“I recall a parliamentary group meeting on June 10, and I resigned Tuesday, the 11th. I cannot recall it being discussed there,” she said.

Robinson said she believed that the dispatch of the fact finding team, was prompted by “other little things which the party would have heard and which were happening internally, that allowed them to conclude that I was going to resign.”

She did not elaborate on what those were.

Sunday Observer sources said the ‘other little things’ may have included two previous resignation letters, which were rejected by party president P J Patterson after meetings with her.

On the third occasion however, when she resigned, the now retired ambassador to Washington Seymour Mullings was acting as prime minister when the resignation was tendered. He sent it immediately to the governor general, said sources.

Bennett was killed October 30, a Sunday, in a stand-off with Operation Kingfish, which mounted a raid on a house at Tanaky, Clarendon, said to be part of the slain Klansman leader’s assets.

The property, nor any of the assets that the police have traced to Bulbie, were in his name.

Two other sources – one of whom is a Klansman member – told the Sunday Observer that just weeks before, two meetings with Klansman-linked members said to have had the ear of Bennett, were held on the North Coast, and along Hope Road in Kingston, respectively, requesting that the gang leader rein in his shooters.

“The Klansman connection was really people who can influence Donovan or who he would listen to you know,” said the Klansman member, who spoke to the Sunday Observer on the eve of Bennett’s funeral.

The first meeting on the coast was to request a ceasefire, which, he said, was agreed.

That meeting preceded the fateful formal meeting in Spanish Town in the first week of October to broker peace between One Order and Klansman, attended by St Catherine MP’s Sharon Hay Webster and Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, and the police.

That meeting became public when Grange’s car was shot up and a One Order member from Tawes Pen was killed.

“That is why the youth who kill ‘Ticarus’ after the meeting with Sharon and Babsy was dealt with so swiftly,” he said, referring to the North Coast agreement.

The talks in Kingston was broader than Klansman, and included other ‘big man’, described by the Klansman member as ” big man dem, man with influence on the ground, but no criminal, no wanted man, and nobody who is even on suspicion of any crime.”

Referring to the alleged meetings leading up to the gang leader’s death, the Klansman member said: “Some people vex you know, cause a what happen, and tings we know happen before Bulbie dead. Nutting nah hide, Jamaica too little. Every thing will soon be in the open.”

With that he terminated the conversation, but urged the reporter to “come to Bulbie nine night and you will hear everything you want.” He, however, acknowledged that he could not guarantee the reporter’s safety.

Bennett and slain head of the One Order gang, Oliver ‘Bubba’ Smith, both ruled the volatile old capital by extorting money from businesses in the area.

Both were killed this year – Smith by men who allegedly trailed him to Whitehall Avenue, where he was shot, and Bennett by the police.

virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com