Home  News Regional News Minister, businessmen call for resumption
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Minister, businessmen call for resumption |
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Monday, 06 October 2008 |
KINGSTON – A government minister along with some of the country's leading business people have called for a resumption of hanging in Jamaica to slap a lid on the island's growing murder rate.
Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Karl Samuda made the call for hanging to resume following the discovery of a body on Sunday believed to be that of an 11-year-old girl, Ananda Dean, who went missing nearly two weeks ago.
"I am not a big hanging fan, but I must tell you that we have to get back to hanging to deal with some of these people," he said, shortly after the body was discovered in the community of Cyprus Hall, Belvedere, St. Andrew.
Samuda, the MP for the North Central St Andrew constituency, where the child lived, said he was torn up by the discovery.
The last hanging took place here two decades ago. Successive governments have promised to re-institute the death penalty but attempts have faltered following objections from human rights groups and lawyers.
The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government which came to power last September says it will hold a conscience vote in parliament to determine whether hanging should be resumed or taken off the law books, but no date has been set for the vote.
Businessmen in the central parish of Manchester have also called for government to resume hanging, following a dramatic increase in murders there in the past four months.
The Manchester Chamber of Commerce, at a meeting last week, urged the government to deal with the matter urgently, given the serious nature of the crime problem in the country.
Recently, three persons were gunned down in the Mandeville market, only yards away from the town's police station and court house, triggering panic among residents. According to police data, 43 people have been killed in the traditionally peaceful parish since the start of the year.
Residents claim that the some of the killings are linked to a struggle for turf between politically affiliated gangs. Retired Senior Superintendent of Police, Reneto Adams agrees. Adams who addressed the Chamber's meeting called on the residents not to allow their parish to be taken over by the gangs.
He suggested that these men must be taken out "before they get rid of you" adding that "if it means the final getting rid of" he has no problem with that. He, however, did not elaborate on his comments.
Since the start of the year, more than 1,000 people have been murdered here.
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