CONCERN about the safety of former Tivoli Gardens don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, now that he is in custody, has been expressed in various quarters.

In an interview earlier this month, Rev Al Miller, who was with Coke when he was arrested on Tuesday, stated that Coke did not want to be held in custody as he feared a fate similar to that of his father Lester Lloyd Coke, also called Jim Brown.

Jim Brown mysteriously burned to death while in a maximum-security cell in 1992. He was within days of being extradited to the US to answer to murder and drug charges. At that time, suspicions ran high that he was silenced because he knew too much.

“That memory was very strong in his (Dudus’) mind,” Miller said. “So we talked about how to allay that fear and to build his confidence in the system which I told him was different from what it was then.”

However, there is still one school of thought which says that plans could be underway to get rid of the 42-year-old Coke rather than have him land on the US soil, giving him the freedom to spill information that could possibly incriminate public figures. At street level, this belief is popular.

André Thomas, a Portmore resident, told Chat! that since Tuesday afternoon when news broke that Coke had been picked up, he had been listening to hear that the helicopter in which he was being transported had crashed, killing him, while the soldiers parachuted out to safety.

“I swear, I expected the helicopter to crash! I don’t believe they will allow him to live and leave the country to testify against them,” he said.

One woman interviewed in Cross Roads, shared similar concerns.

“This time they might not light the cell with him like they did his father, because they know people will know that he was murdered, but I believe they are trying to find some strategic way to get rid of him,” she said, even as she declined to give her name.

“I think maybe they will put something in his food that may be undetected to poison him and then bring in persons to do autopsy to say he died from some unknown illness or something!” she stated, “Them! You can’t trust them. Their skin on the line right now.”

At a press conference called by the commissioner of police at his office on Hope Road, Tuesday, shortly after Coke was arrested, Commissioner Ellington stated that Coke was being held at a secure facility and called upon family members, friends and supporters to remain calm while the police carry out their work.

“We can only hope for the best,” a woman who gave her name as Primose said. “Right now the entire country is watching, and the US is watching us, so I hope they don’t do anything stupid. After all this, I want to hear what Dudus has to say and whose secret he is keeping. But quite frankly, I think they will try to kill him.”

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