OPPOSITION Senator KD Knight yesterday urged the Government to take steps to try West Kingston strongman Christopher Dudus Coke on Jamaican soil, since it is reluctant to extradite him to the United States to face alleged drug-and-gun trafficking charges. There is the possibility of prosecuting the person locally. If there is the evidence and you dont want to send the person abroad and the evidence was gathered here in accordance with the Interception of Communications Act, then prosecute the person here you dont have to extradite the person, he said.

Knight, an attorney-at-law and national security minister under the former Peoples National Party administration, was speaking during a luncheon of the Lions Club of Kingston at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston

The senator, who expressed concern that Jamaicans could suffer because of the Governments handling of the Dudus issue, said he did not think it was right to leave the issue hanging.

Said Knight: Ministers and prime ministers come and go a dime a dozen but we are custodians, we are trustees and we must ensure that we do that thing that is inimical to the development of Jamaica.

Knight who said his comments were not to be seen in the light of him taking a swipe at Justice Minister and Attorney General Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, who has responsibility for dispensing with extradition requests said it could not be denied that extraditions are a political thing.

Its an executive act. The political directorate has the first and last say. The minister responsible for extraditions has to issue an authority to proceed before any extradition request can go to the court, he noted. In this respect, he pointed out that the statute which was passed in the 1980s by the Jamaica Labour Party, which was in power at the time, only to be withdrawn and passed by the PNP administration in the 1990s clearly sets out the powers of the minister and the powers of the courts.

The lines may be regarded as blurred in this sense; if a court after hearing the matter decides the person ought to be extradited, the minister still has the jurisdiction to say I am not sending this person.

There are details a minister doesnt go into. A minister doesnt go into admissibility of evidence, thats for the courts and therefore when I hear that an extradition is being reviewed on the basis that the evidence has been illegally obtained I think thats a usurpation of the functions of the Court, Knight argued.

This extradition request at hand has been badly handled and it has given the impression to the public that it is being dealt with on a partisan basis and thats wrong, he continued.

The Opposition senator, at the same time, suggested that the Bruce Golding administration review the areas of the statute it was finding difficult to live with.

Perhaps its time for us to look at the Extradition Act with a view to seeing if there are areas to be amended. If the policy makers who are the legislators are unhappy with aspects of it, they have the jurisdiction to change it. I think there are some areas we should look to amend, he said.

Knight also recommended that the policymakers invite the Jamaican Bar Association to outline the areas where it is thought amendments should be made and then relook at the statute rather than behaving in this way.

The Jamaican Government and the United States have been at cross purposes since August last year when the US Government requested that Coke be extradited to face charges for crimes he allegedly committed there.

But the Government has been holding out, arguing that the electronic evidence against Coke was gathered in breach of Jamaican law. The administration has held that the communication was illegally passed on to US authorities by a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force who worked in the intercept facility in Kingston.

Government has, however, come under severe pressure from several organisations and individuals for its decision, with several people calling its action partisan.