Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding on Thursday denied that he told US Charge d’affaires Isaiah Parnell that non-combatants were being “summarily” killed and women raped during the security forces’ operation to apprehend former don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
Golding made the denial while being questioned by Lord Anthony Gifford, QC, during the Tivoli Gardens enquiry.
Gifford had questioned Golding about the content of an e-mail sent in May 2010 by Isaiah Parnell, the US charge d’affaires in Jamaica, to a colleague after meeting with Golding a day after the May 24 operation to apprehend Coke started.
Parnell had told his colleague that Golding had told him that women were being raped and non-combatants were being “summarily shot”, but that “our military assets could not confirm this”.
Asked if what Parnell said to his colleague, that Golding could not trust the reporting from the Jamaica Defence Force, and sent Bishop Herro Blair, then public defender and then head of the Red Cross Dr Jaslin Stewart into Tivoli was indeed his position, Golding said he sent the men into Tivoli Gardens because of conflicting reports, and he was in search of truth.
Jamaica Observer
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