The original plan completed in January 2010 envisioned the JCF role to arrest, search for evidence and execute the warrant on Dudus; whereas the JDF role at the time would be to provide a cordon to allow this to occur. However, the original focus changed.
DCP Glenmore Hinds explains:
"It did when the situation was no longer a law enforcement activity but a security operation, when the blockades were reinforced with explosives, when men began to fire at our assets, loot and destroy our assets. It became a situation that our law enforcement assets was just not able to respond.” (Source; Tivoli COE, Day 30, May 26, 2015, p 48)
The Operational Report Extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke 2010 had identified possible escape routes and counter measures:
‘The subject and other targets may attempt to evade capture by using the following routes to escape from the community:
– Industrial Terrace
– Spanish Town Road vicinity Tivoli Courts
– Lizard Town Entrance
– Foot Path Exiting Spanish Town Road vicinity Denham Town High
School
– Foot Path along Train Line into May Pen Cemetery/ Greenwich Farm
– Underground Waterway from Ebenezer Coke Methodist Church to Sea, vicinity Marcus Garvey Drive Industrial Terrace Intersection – (Possibility of pre-arranged vessels destined for Panama or Columbia)
Policy: The Security Forces will monitor the escape route and employ strategies aimed at:
• Restricting access to the escape routes
• Identifying and capturing anyone successfully accessing any of the
routes
• Preventing the escape of the subject, his cronies, or the removal of
arms, ammunition, evidence and other illegal items from the target
area”
(Source: Appendix I)
Christopher Coke escaped the Security operations launched in Tivoli Gardens. COP Owen Ellington provided no credible information on how Coke, along with some of his cronies, had managed to escape the security dragnet and the route taken.
"Q: Are you able or willing at the stage to give an opinion as to how Mr Coke may have eluded the security forces in Tivoli?
A: In the chaos, confusion, intense gun, and all the attendant uncertainties, it would have been easy for anyone, be it Coke or otherwise to get out of that dragnet. The theory we have is that he escaped in a northerly direction out of the community heading up through Hannah Town and then out in the wider society. We haven’t been able to confirm it, no one has given statement to the best of my knowledge saying that that is the route he took but it is a credible theory that he may have used that particular direction to leave the community."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 19, p3)
Asked specifically if any member of the security forces was posted at the end of the tunnels which would have led out of Tivoli, Owen Ellington was of the opinion that they would have been shot. Accordingly, there was “no posting of people in the tunnels or beside the tunnels”.
Head of Operations, DCP Glemore Hinds confirmed that no member of the security force was placed near any of the tunnels.
"The operational plan and the tactics envisioned that there would have been a complete cordon of the area including Denham Town. The cordon had some difficulty when it was being enforced because a member of the JDF was shot and that delayed deployment."
(Source Tivoli COE, Day 31 May 27, 2015, p 137)
COP Ellington seemed satisfied with the intelligence that Coke was fortified in Tivoli at the start of the operation. An exasperated Commissioner Simmons had some concerns about the intelligence available to the JCF:
"Commissioner: What I am asking you, I am asking you about your state of knowledge on Sunday afternoon when you briefed the Prime Minister. We established one thing. You know that Coke was, according to intelligence in your possession, in Tivoli Gardens but you did not know exactly where?
Ellington: I did not seek to establish that.
Commissioner: Nor did you seek to find out. Of course, I will note that in the report, I promise you that."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 21, April 13, 2015, pp 177–78)
Chairman Simmons’ exasperation was further exacerbated when Head of Operations, DCP Glenmore Hinds testified that he was not made aware of routes used to leave the area because army intelligence was not shared with him.
"Commissioner: I find it hard to accept that if there was intelligence coming through that Coke had got away and the route through which he got away, that this was not shared with you as head of Operation. I cannot . . . I find it hard to accept, I just say that."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 31, May 27, 2015, p 8)
JDF had a Combat Support Battalion (CSB) particularly tasked to enter Java and secure Mr Coke. members were masked (balaclavas) in order to protect their identity and they traveled in a convoy, including an armed military vehicle.
JDF intelligence reports had indicated that Coke had left Tivoli around 3:00pm Sunday and basically plotted his movements leaving Tivoli.
Major General Stewart Saunders (CDS):
"He left Tivoli via the Chestnut Lane area heading up to Hannah Town and from there we had a number of reports of him not being in Hannah Town for a short while but in lower St. Andrew area, upper St. Andrew, over to St. Mary and St. Ann. And during the period we were having those reports we launched a number of operations to try and capture him."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 39, June 23, 2015, pp 162–163)
On June 22, 2010 Christopher “Dudus“ Coke was captured in a military-led operation. Major General Stewart Saunders (CDS) recalled the role played by the JDF in the capture:
"Well, the JDF through its intelligence resources in combination with that of the police were the ones responsible for trying to track him down and locate his position as he was traveling across the countryside, so to speak. In addition to that a number of reports had come in which had to be analyzed and assessed and validated which resulted also in operations being launched in order to capture him. Most of these reports took the format of sighting come from the civilian populce in particular. And as I said earlier in my evidence, it was confirmed that on the 22nd, the day that he was captured it was confirmed that he had left St Ann, the intelligence resources that had picked him up somewhere in the region of Ewarton Bog Walk, entering the Gorge. There was a report at the time, if I remember correctly, that he was en route to the US Embassy in Kingston to give himself up and he was apprehended along the Spanish Town highway, if I am correct."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 39, June 23, 2015, pp 163–64)
What seems baffling is that there was no attempt by the JDF to interrogate the captured subject.
The CDS explained:
"No, there was no interrogation or anything like that of Mr Coke. It would be basically unlawful to have done anything like that at that particular moment in time."
(Source: Tivoli COE, Day 39, June 23, 2015, p 165)
Major General indicated that there were reports that Coke “wanted an opportunity to hand himself over to the JDF as opposed to the police”. This seemed understandable as Coke’s father Lester Coke aka ‘Jim Brown’, the reputed ‘Don Dadda’ of Tivoli Gardens, was mysteriously burnt to death whilst in police custody awaiting extradition
On June 24, 2010 Christopher “Dudus” Coke waived his right to challenge the extradition proceedings and was duly ordered by Resident Magistrate Georgiana Fraser to be extradited. Minister of Justice, Dorothy Lightbourne signed the Warrant of Minister for Extradition of the Fugitive.
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