THE evidential phase of the closely watched Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry wrapped up last Friday, after close to 50 days of sitting.

The televised hearing, which started on January 17, did not cease to enrapture viewers who stuck to their television sets with each day’s broadcast.

Not surprisingly, the high points came with the witnesses — Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Attorney General and Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne, attorney Harold Brady and Dr Ronald Robinson, the junior foreign minister who resigned at the height of the Dudus/Manatt affair.

The sittings got heated on several occasions, particularly during the cross-examination of Golding and Lightbourne by Queen’s Counsel KD Knight, who represented the Opposition People’s National Party. But things came to a head last Wednesday when the sitting was prematurely adjourned and Golding and Knight sent to “cool off” after butting verbal heads and Government supporters became boisterous.

It was the second time that the proceedings had to be suspended. The first occasion was March 10 when Lightbourne refused to apologise directly to Knight for a statement she had made.

The justice minister caused a stir when she uttered that 31 years ago Knight kicked a chair on which she was sitting and commented that “all Labourite fi dead”. Knight demanded an apology and a retraction but Lightbourne only apologised to the commission and not to Knight. The following day Lightbourne withdrew the comment, but refused to apologise to the PNP attorney, who, as a result, was later assigned security.

He was, however, not the only one who had to engage professional security during the course of the enquiry. The commission was told that special security arrangements were put in place for the wife of former police commissioner Hardley Lewin after Queen’s Counsel Frank Phipps revealed her identity and place of employment during the sitting on February 7. The commission heard of the security arrangement a few days later, February 11.

Phipps, who represented the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at the enquiry, gave the impression that Lewin’s wife, who works at the US Embassy in Kingston, was the one who revealed to Lewin on August 24, 2009 that a request would be arriving the following day for the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

On January 24, Brady — the lawyer at the centre of the Manatt controversy — refused to give evidence before the enquiry, in defiance of an order from commission chairman Emil George, QC that he participate or face prosecution. Brady is currently before the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court as a result of his refusal.

The March 23 sitting of the enquiry was another dramatic one. After being identified by Lightbourne as the person who sent an e-mail, on September 16, 2009 to Brady and Solicitor General Douglas Leys regarding Coke’s extradition, Verna McGaw took the stand, but not before requesting that she not be filmed for fear of her safety.

George subsequently cleared the room at the Jamaica Conference Centre where the enquiry is being held. Even so, however, McGaw, one of the executive secretaries who was assigned to Lightbourne, gave her evidence from a translation booth in the room. She testified that she had been acting on direction from Lightbourne when she sent the e-mail.

Her evidence was in contradiction to that of Lightbourne who, after owning up to the e-mail, made a U-turn and distanced herself from it. At one point Lightbourne even said there was a possibility that the e-mail may have been forged. This, after previously denying briefing Brady on the matter of the extradition request for Coke.

In February, Robinson — who in May last year resigned as a result of his meeting in 2009 with representatives of the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips — took the witness stand, testifying that it was the prime minister who had dispatched him.

But Golding, during his days of evidence which ended last Friday, said he was surprised by Robinson’s apology since it was he (Golding) who authorised the trip to Washington.

The PM said on Friday that he did not tip off Coke on August 25, 2009, and also that Manatt was hired by the JLP and not the Government, contrary to what the law firm is contending. He said he approved the approach to Manatt when it became apparent to him that the US would have been inflexible on the extradition request.

Golding also denied a suggestion that the fees to engage Manatt were provided by Coke, and that neither his party nor the Government had intended to stall the extradition or have the US withdraw the request.

Former security minister in the previous PNP Government, Dr Peter Phillps, was grilled for several days in February over his signing of four memoranda of understanding (MOUs) in 2004 without the knowledge of the Cabinet. The MOUs, which allowed for the interception of telephone conversations of Jamaican citizens, were referred to by the US during the impasse with Jamaica over the extradition request.

Meanwhile, on February 11, Leys described as a “web of deception” Brady’s involvement in the extradition matter concerning Coke, the former Tivoli Gardens don and alleged drug lord who is now awaiting trial in New York, USA.

Among those who also gave evidence at the enquiry were security minister Dwight Nelson, industry and commerce minister Karl Samuda, information minister and former JLP deputy treasurer Daryl Vaz, Senior deputy director of public prosecutions in charge of the extradition unit Jeremy Taylor, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin (retired) and former head of the army Major General Stewart Saunders.