Tivoli COE: Diddly Squat (1)

Chapter 12 of the Report of the Western Kinston Commission of Enquiry is a complete waste of time and added nothing to the pool of information already in the public space. Simply put, it is "diddly squat".
Chapter 12 purports to address (i) the issue of any communication between any official of the GOJ and Christopher Coke during the period 24 August 2009 to June 2010; and (ii) matters concerning the search for and discovery of documents at Coke's offices by the security forces. See our post " Tivoli COE: Diddly Squat (2)"

                                    GOJ Officials Communicating with Coke

"12.15   On the evidence adduced to the Commission of Enquiry ,we find that there was no direct communication during the period 24 August 2009 and May 2010 between Christopher Coke and any official of the Government of Jamaica. The evidence of Coke being "tipped off" on 24 August 2009 after the Heads of the security forces informed the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Security of an imminent request for Coke's extradition, is not of a quality that could leads us to make any finding of communication between Coke and any official of the GOJ."(emphasis added)

Certain observations are unavoidable:

(a) The Commissioners have adopted a courtroom approach in a criminal trial in which the judge merely acts on the evidence adduced. Thus any inadequacy is placed directly on those charged with the responsibility of adducing the evidence, in this case Commission Counsel.

(b) There seems to be an overly pedantic approach. Obviously Coke was "tipped off".
Common sense  ( utilized by the Commissioners later ) leads one to conclude that it would be rather reckless for any official of the GOJ to be in direct communication with Coke. Hence surrogates would have been employed by both sides and coded messages utilized.

(c) There is evidence available from the Heads of the Security Forces that Coke was under "surveillance " and was being "monitored"for some two weeks before the period under investigation.

(d) In the absence of a belated confession from a GOJ official and traces of telephonic communication from the locales of the Ministry of National Security and Vale Royal around the material times, then this was an exercise in futility.