Bunting suggests Gov’t officials could be extradited
CHRISTIANA, Manchester — General secretary of the People’s National Party Peter Bunting appeared to speculate on Thursday night that Government officials could be indicted for extradition by the United States Government.
Addressing a North East Manchester PNP constituency meeting at the Christiana High School, Bunting quoted from news reports of damning allegations against the Government made by Police Federation chairman Raymond Wilson on Wednesday.
Wilson was commenting on the continuing controversy surrounding the Government’s nine-month delay in acting to extradite former West Kingston don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke who is now before US courts on drug and gun-running charges; as well as the related hiring of a US law firm in relation to the extradition issue.
Bunting also reminded his audience of reports of “a new sealed indictment that has been lodged in the Court in New York…”
Against all that background, Bunting said: “What an embarrassment it would be if the next extradition request (shouts and applause from the audience), if the next extradition request is aimed at the same target that the cops were firing at (on Wednesday)?”
Asked yesterday to clarify and elaborate on his statement, Bunting an investment banker who is member of parliament for Central Manchester and Opposition spokesman on national security, said only “I was merely musing on what an embarrassment it (such a request for extradition) would be…”
He told PNP hardcore in Christiana that “now we are hearing from the Police Federation, brave men on the ground, who know what’s going on and have the intelligence… they have the information and we have heard them add their voices, their courageous voices…”
Bunting charged that “never before in history has the good name of Jamaica been dragged through the mud the way it has been these past 12 months, every day some new embarrassing detail of this whole sordid affair leaks out”.
He claimed that the “corrupt” Golding administration was “trying their best because their behaviour is indefensible to say ‘well, we and the PNP are the same’.”
But, he argued, comrades should “mash down that lie (because) no one has ever accused the leader of the PNP (or) a minister of government of turning the system upside down and using the system to protect and defend the criminals rather than the good police officers the way they did with ‘Constable Red Herring’.