Police: No preferential treatment for Silvera
THE COMMANDING officer for the police division where Jolyan Silvera is being housed has dismissed claims that the former lawmaker is getting preferential treatment.
Several detainees at the Kingston Central police lockup threatened to stage a “riot” on the weekend after Silvera, the former St Mary Western member of parliament (MP), got to sleep on a sponge “the size of a single bed” which was in his cell while they, as usual, slept on the ground, sources disclosed.
Silvera was placed in a highsecurity cell at the downtown Kingston police lockup after he was charged on Friday with killing his wife, Melissa.
According to sources, the sponge was not “specifically” given to Silvera.
“Other prisoners were using it before and left it there,” one source explained.
Senior Superintendent Beresford Williams, head of the Kingston Central police, confirmed that a sponge was removed from a cell during “a major operation” on Saturday, but bristled at claims of special treatment for the ex-lawmaker turned-murder-accused.
“There is nobody getting any preferential treatment. Everybody is sleeping on concrete and cardboard, to include Mr Silvera,” Williams told The Gleaner yesterday.
The Kingston Central commanding officer said he was not aware of any planned disturbance by detainees.
BULLET FRAGMENTS
It was initially reported that Melissa Silvera, a graduate of the University of Virginia, in the United States, passed away peacefully in her sleep at home last November.
However, during an autopsy that was conducted three weeks later, three bullet fragments were found inside her body, suggesting she may have been shot three times, police sources disclosed.
Her death subsequently became a murder probe and was handed over to the Major Investigation Division of the police force.
Jolyan Silvera is expected to make his first court appearance this week in the Home Circuit Court on a voluntary bill of indictment, which allows prosecutors to bypass a committal proceeding hearing in the lower parish court.