FORMER Jamaican Cabinet Minister Dudley Thompson died this morning in New York, USA, one day after he celebrated his 95th birthday. Thompson served as minister of national security and justice, as well as foreign affairs minister.

Known as one of Jamaica’s finest lawyers of his generation, Thompson was a firebrand minister of national security and Member of Parliament under the Michael Manley-led People’s National Party regime of the 1970s.

Thompson, a Mico College Rhodes Scholar, also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs during the period, and later ambassador and high commissioner to several African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Namibia.

He had lived in Florida for several years and was in New York to attend a meeting when he died.

His infamous statement that ‘no angels died at Green Bay’ following the killing of five civilian supporters of the Jamaica labour Party by local army personnel at a firing range in the hills of St Catherine in 1977 caused much controversy.

The Green Bay massacre occurred 34 years ago on January 5, 1978. Five men from Gold Street and Higholborn Street in the Central Kingston community of Southside were lured into an ambush at the Jamaica Defence Force firing range and shot dead.

They had gone there based upon a promise of getting jobs. Among the five killed was outstanding former Santos Football Club and Jamaica midfielder Norman ‘Gutto’ Thompson.