The plot to kill former Mayor of Spanish Town Dr Raymoth Notice took on another dimension last night when information emerged that elements from the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) were involved in the attempt.

Notice was hospitalised last December after he was shot three times by three men at his home in Bog Walk, St Catherine, in a brazen, early morning attack. He has since been released from hospital.

Members of the police high command refused to comment on allegations that a member of the JLP was behind the attack, which has so far resulted in the arrest of two men, one of whom is known by Notice. Word reaching the Jamaica Observer is that the fingerprints of one of the accused men was matched by police to those found at Notice’s house.

However, one senior police source who asked that his name is not mentioned said that a probe was already underway into determining whether or not the JLP man was the brain behind the attack.

“The matter is a delicate one and we don’t wish to speak about it at this time,” one senior police officer assigned to the St Catherine North Division told the Sunday Observer yesterday. “In any case, I don’t know who I am talking to, because anybody can call and say he is calling from the Observer,” the senior officer said.

Political Ombudsman Donna Parchment-Brown said she would not comment on whether or not a report had been sent to her about the suggestion that a senior JLP man had a hand in the attack.

Notice has also stated publicly that there was a plot to assassinate him, after he reported to the JLP that certain things were amiss within the party machinery in sections of St Catherine.

In a dramatic twist last night, it emerged also that a gun that was used in the attack on Notice has been traced to a well-known activist in the People’s National Party who is based in a rural Jamaica parish. The St Catherine police refused to confirm or deny the allegation.

Notice, who at one time was assigned to the Department Correctional Services as a medical doctor, has served as councillor for the Bog Walk Division of the St Catherine Parish Council. He also ran, unsuccessfully, against retired Member of Parliament KD Knight in St Catherine North Central. Knight was replaced by present Cabinet minister Natalie Neita Headley.

The shooting incident involving the outspoken Notice shocked Jamaica and triggered an outpouring of sympathy from both the PNP and the JLP hierarchy, with the PNP urging the victim to tell all that he knew about the incident to the police. The suggestion was that something untoward had occurred and that Notice had knowledge of more things than met the eye at the time.

Other sections of the society also joined in the condemnation of the act and urged those who had information on the matter to share it with investigators.