THE five high-risk inmates at the New Horizon Remand Centre — whose claims of being brutalised have sparked a probe by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) and outcries by human rights groups and defence attorneys — have been convicted or charged for serious crimes, including multiple murder, shootings and gun possession.

The five — Joel Andem, Kevin ‘Richie Poo’ Tyndale, Michael McLean, Christopher ‘Dog Paw’ Linton and Leighton ‘Livety’ Coke — are currently on a hunger strike in protest over what they claim to be vicious beatings handed out to them by Jamaica Defence Force soldiers who man the high-risk security post 11.

The five had last week written to the Supreme Court outlining the beatings they were subjected to.

However, prison officials have countered by describing them as dangerous criminals.

Below are the details of their convictions and charges:

Joel Andem was for years the nation’s most feared fugitive, topping the most wanted list for months. The leader of the notorious Gideon Warriors Gang is currently serving a 20-year sentence for shooting with intent.

Andem, who police suspect was involved in  at least 23 murders, was also sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment at hard labour on a charge of illegal possession of a firearm. In addition, he was slapped with another 20-year prison sentence in relation to other gun-related charges.

Andem’s gang, which operated primarily from the hilly Kintyre area of St Andrew, was blamed for a reign of terror in the Papine/August Town districts of the parish and for extortion rackets at markets and transportation centres.

Gang members have also been accused of robberies, rapes and killings, including the August 2000 kidnapping and murder of service station operator Sylvia Edwards, whose body was found in a shallow grave.

The Gideon Warriors gang came to national prominence in early 2002 when the police, during a raid at their camp at Rawly Hill Gully — seven kilometres from Kintyre — found video recordings of Andem and his men, armed with high-powered rifles and other weapons, hosting a Christmas treat for children in the community and frolicking with each other.

The recording also showed gang members issuing threats against the police.

In the wake of the discovery of that recording as well as a notebook containing names which the police feared were intended victims, several gang members were killed in confrontations with the police and Andem was eventually captured at a house in the hills of St Ann in May 2004.

This is the second time that Andem has accused prison officials of beating him.

In 2008, an investigation was launched after Andem complained to Justice Gloria Smith at the Gun Court that a dozen soldiers had beaten him that day. The beating, he said then, happened after he refused to go with them to an upper cell, which made him sick.

According to Andem, he had been suffering severe headaches and stomach pains since the alleged incident in which he alleged he was dragged up a flight of stairs to the cell.

Andem’s second in command, Kevin ‘Richie Poo’ Tyndale, was also collared in a rural St James village, tried and sentenced to a total of 90 years on gun-related, wounding and robbery charges.

But because the sentences on the three counts are to run concurrently, Tyndale will serve only 30 years.

Police also said Tyndale is a suspect in several other major crimes, including robbery and August 2003 murder of Jervis Lobban in Mud Town, St Andrew, another stomping ground for the Gideon Warriors gang.

He was convicted for the 2003 shooting and robbery of an August Town, St Andrew, businessman who was shot six times and his jewellery and licensed firearm taken.

According to the police and the evidence led in the closed court proceedings, as the businessman lay wounded, Tyndale stood over him and shot him at point blank range in the head. The businessman survived and was able to identify Tyndale as one of his attackers. The man still has a bullet lodged in his head.

Tyndale denied the allegations and told the court that he was at home at the time of the shooting.

Police claimed he was the gang’s second in command until Andem’s capture. According to police claims at the time, Tyndale wet his pants, sniffled and begged not to be killed at the time of his capture.

At the time of his arrest cops said Tyndale was a suspect in 19 other major crimes, including murder, shootings and robberies. Police believe he shot and killed 56 year-old Ena Grant and injured another woman as they worshipped at a church in Land Lease, St Andrew.

Scared eyewitnesses on the scene said the assassin went to the altar as the pastor preached and was warmly greeted by the man of cloth before he took out his gun and aimed it at Grant. The armed man pulled the trigger twice but his gun misfired and Grant valiantly tried to use her Bible to hit the weapon from her attacker’s hand. She almost disarmed him, a church member said.

“The gun stick and the people start bawl out ‘The blood of Jesus is upon you’. She used her bible and lick him and the gun drop,” the eyewitness told the Observer at the time.

But the gunman, determined that Grant must die, simply went outside, fixed the weapon and walked back into the house of worship where he pumped three shots into her body.

Grant was shot just over her right eye and armpit. When the Observer arrived, her lifeless body was still on the church floor. Her glasses, minus the right lens, were perched on her face and her Bible was trapped beneath her body.

The murders of 20 year-old Kimona Simpson, her 24 year-old common-law husband Richard Miller, and her nine year-old son Tevin Parchment were also suspected to be the work of Tyndale and his cronies.

Michael McLean has been accused of the killing of six members of a St Thomas family — three of them children no older than nine years old.

The murdered family members were identified as three-year-old Lloyd McCool, Jhaid McCool, 6, Jessie Ogilvie, 9, Sean Chin, 8, Farika Martin-McCool, 27 and Terry-Ann Mohammed, also called ‘Teenie’, 42. They all lived at 49 Duhaney Pen Road in the parish.

Police reported that fishermen on the Blue Mahoe Beach in Prospect stumbled upon the bodies of two children — Lloyd and Jessie — lying together with their throats cut.

The bodies of Martin-McCool and her son Sean were found about a half-mile away, on the other side of the beach called ‘Cutters Point’. Their throats were also cut and Martin-McCool had several stab wounds in her back. Cops suspected that Martin-McCool was running away from her attacker as she was found lying on her face about 22 yards from her son’s body.

Terry-Ann Mohammed’s body was found 12 miles away on the side of a footpath in Needham Pen. It was burnt beyond recognition. Police said the body was identified by a pair of slippers she was wearing.

Police said five days after the murders, McLean led them to the body of Jhaid McCool at Rosemont district, St Mary. The child’s body was found covered by a piece of board.

Both Linton and Coke are facing charges of shooting at the police and suspected involvement in other serious crimes.