Police investigating the March 20, 2006 killing of trade ambassador Peter King on Friday formally charged 23-year-old Sheldon Pusey, alias ‘Brown man’ of a St Andrew address with King’s murder.

The police had expressed an interest in Pusey since last year when it was discovered that he was one of six men present at a small party King held at his house the night he was killed.

According to the police, Pusey was the only person known to be at the gathering who had not come forward to the police to give information.

He was apprehended in Oracabessa, St Mary on February 24 during a police operation involving personnel from Oracabessa, St Andrew Central, Operation Kingfish and the Major Investigation Taskforce.

Communication officer for Operation Kingfish, Inspector Steve Brown, told the Sunday Observer yesterday that “investigations had reached the point where there was enough evidence for Pusey to be charged with murder”.

“Against that background, he was formally charged,” Brown said.

Deputy Superintendent in charge of Criminal Investigations for the St Andrew Central Division, Detective McArthur Sutherland, told the Sunday Observer that Pusey was taken into custody in St Mary on other matters initially before it was found out that he was wanted in Kingston.

“I don’t have the details, but he was taken into custody in St Mary in relation to something else and the officers discovered who they had and we intervened,” Sutherland said.

The detective said the police are certain that Pusey is their main man.

“He is the person; I can’t get into the details in terms of the evidence, but we have had enough to press charges,” the detective told the Sunday Observer. “I would suggest that the investigations are closed; there is some closure to it now because we caught the person we were interested in. We are not searching for any other suspects.”

As to whether the police had completed their review of the controversial tapes found at King’s house, McArthur was reluctant to comment.

“I can’t speak to any tapes or any details in the case and I wouldn’t be able to speak to any details in the tapes,” he said.

The 64-year-old King, who was also Jamaica’s special envoy, was found by staff of his consultancy firm lying on the floor of his bedroom, his throat slashed and his body mutilated. A collection of videos, which has sparked much speculation and controversy, was removed from the house by the police. The contents have not been made public.

King began his public service career in the 1960s in the Jamaica High Commission in London. Soon afterwards, he became a personal assistant to the then minister of trade and industry, Robert Lightbourne, and in the 1970s to Lightbourne’s successor, a young P J Patterson.

King served as deputy high commissioner to Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados and Guyana in the 1980s, and in the 1990s was a lead representative on behalf of the Caricom Regional Negotiating Machinery for market access in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations.

An authority on the textiles and apparel industry, King served as Caribbean co-ordinator on the Central American and Caribbean Textile and Apparel Council, but also used his negotiating skills in several areas, including agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.