‘A win for Jamaica’: 15 people convicted in landmark gang-busting trial
Fifteen people have been convicted on charges ranging from gang membership and gun possession to murder, in a landmark gang-busting trial hailed by Jamaican authorities as a major blow to one of the island’s deadliest criminal organisations.
Twelve other defendants were acquitted and the cases against five others were not pursued, but police and prosecutors described the verdicts this week as historic. One defendant was murdered while on bail.
“This is a win for law enforcement, a win for the criminal justice system and a win for Jamaica,” said Fitz Bailey, deputy police commissioner for the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
The marathon trial, which lasted a year and a half, is a victory for the government of the prime minister, Andrew Holness, which passed a series of judicial reforms aimed at reining in gang violence.
Jamaica currently has a murder rate of more than 40 per 100,000, one of the highest globally, and gang violence accounts for 70% of killings.
The trial was marked by drama, intrigue and bloodcurdling testimony. It also featured a combative judge – Chief Justice Bryan Sykes – who criticised the police and prosecutors for evidence-gathering blunders; revelations of police and army co-conspirators; and defendants with ghoulish or cartoonish aliases including “Squeeze Eye”, “City
Puss”, “Mawga [Skinny] Man” and “Sick Head”.
The case emerged from internecine strife that splintered the Clansman criminal empire, which has for decades terrorised Spanish Town, a former capital of Jamaica.
André “Blackman” Bryan was found guilty of six murders and named as the leader of the Clansman-One Don gang faction.
Bryan cut a teary-eyed and diminished figure at the trial’s end – a stark contrast to the testimony of one former gangster who described him as a despotic leader who laughed hysterically while recounting a murder.
But the case might have collapsed before coming to trial when a protected witness – one of two former associates who testified against Bryan – grew increasingly depressed and fearful for his life.
That witness, whose identity was protected by a publication ban, became increasingly anxious in a state protection programme. He was moved across the Caribbean several times.
“Truly I’m depressed and stressed out and it’s like I have no one to talk to. I have no friends or family and the person they told me to get to in case of an emergency doesn’t answer when you’re calling or return a call. I asked to go home because I’m not happy and I want to come off the programme, and nothing,” he said in an interview on 23 May 2021, four months before the start of the trial.
The national security minister, Dr Horace Chang, described the effort to keep the former gangster in witness protection as a “constant battle”.
“Witness protection is difficult. Gang cases take long … To pull them together takes an enormous amount of police work,” said Chang. The other gangster turned witness is said to be “in good spirits”.
Police and prosecutors had initially sought to prosecute 53 alleged Clansman-One Don members, but only 33 were eventually brought to trial.
Chang praised the island’s chief prosecutor (DPP), Paula Llewellyn, and Bailey for seeing the case to its end.
Llewellyn described the logistical management and witness care as “very challenging on occasions”.
The DPP praised her team of four or five prosecutors for painstaking collaboration with the police on the ground.
She had special commendation for the two ex-gangsters who turned on the mob, with one of them literally walking into a police station to offer his testimony.
The witnesses gave police a rare opportunity to infiltrate Jamaica’s notoriously tight-knit gangs, but it remains unclear if such a move can be replicated against other crime factions.
“As much as they consorted with these guys, Jamaica will owe them a great debt of gratitude,” said Llewellyn.
Jamaica’s murder toll has fallen 20% year-on-year as of 5 March – a consequence, the police say, of heightened investigative capacity and gang destabilisation linked to occasional states of emergency.