It was a humid day. Fat white clouds scuttled across the morning sky as the sun, a bright shining coin, was still ascending steadily. Brown, a material witness in a shooting case, was heading to work in a taxi. The taxi had pulled to a crawl in the peak hour traffic. Brown, seated in the rear of the vehicle, glanced out the window at a woman wearing a tight mini-skirt. He did not hear the roar of the bike behind him. Nor did he see the pillion rider on the bike take careful aim. Nor did he feel much pain when his brains exited his forehead to smear the windshield and the passenger riding in front of him in a jellylike cloud of *lo**.

Another witness killed. Another case of justice denied. And yet another criminal allowed to waltz away from prison, free to murder again.

Brown was just one of many Jamaicans who has refused to enter the Witness Protection Programme (WPP) because he did not trust in its effectiveness. The WPP is a life-changing experience for many Jamaicans who inadvertently pulled into its womb. They often emerge from this experience vastly different individuals as it means they are uprooted, taken from their jobs, isolated from communities and friends. Sometimes, witnesses are moved to another part of the country, or in some cases they may have to be relocated abroad.

If you are in Kingston, they relocate you to somewhere in rural Jamaica and you cannot go certain places, you cannot contact your family and friends. You tell them how much you used to earn and you are given that money every month, you are secure, but it is difficult, one witness who got involved in the programme said.

You give up all your freedoms, and everything you called home.

She eventually left the programme after the person she was supposed to testify against died at the hands of the police.

It was a bit difficult to restart my life but I was relieved to be free to live my life again, she said.

Last year, the National Security Ministry boasted of its track record in protecting state witnesses since it assumed responsibility for the Justice Protection Unit (JPU).

The programme began officially in 1995 and is now administered by the Ministry of National Security. The National Security Ministry took over the programme three years after it was managed by the Police, and implemented a system whereby social workers from the Ministry work with those in the programme. The unit was previously managed by the Jamaica Constabulary Force. since the programme's implementation, nearly 1,500 persons have benefited from the services of the JPU, including both primary witnesses and their dependents.

The Ministry claimed that 182 of the persons who accessed the Programme were successfully released.

Despite the successes of the Ministry of National Security's Witness Protection Scheme, much more had to be done to provide investigating officers with support to manage victims and witnesses.

"We need information; we need our witnesses to come forward. I know it is difficult, but we need witnesses to come forward and give evidence. The JCF makes a solemn promise to do everything within its power to protect these witnesses and to make life as easy as possible for them," one officer was quoted as saying.
In spite of the governments sterling track record, few persons trust their safety to it, preferring not to testify at all.

One officer told one876News that if witnesses opt not to go into the witness protection programme, the result could be death. One case in point is that of businessman Andy Richards who was murdered by gunmen last year. Richards had escaped death only last year after men fired shots at him in close proximity to his house in Kelly Pen.

"If only he had listenedhe refused to go into the witness protection programme, and if he had, maybe he would be alive today. In May 2006, they killed his nephew in Dumbeholden. Andy was a witness in that case, and he was killed the day before it was to be mentioned in court, one relative of Richards told a reporter.

Witness intimidation is also a popular route chosen by criminals. In January 2005, captured gang leader Joel Andem was freed of a murder charge in the Home Circuit Court after the prosecution's only witness firmly told the court that he would not testify for fear of his life. That case was in regard to the June 26, 2000 shooting death of 20 year-old Lennox Ffrench on Old Hope Road, St Andrew.

In 2005, the prosecution was forced to drop a double murder case against convicted killer Marvin Reid after witnesses refused to give evidence in court, saying they did not want to share the fate of Richard Spence. At the time, the prosecution had three witnesses to the double murder, two of whom did not testify at a preliminary inquiry. However, Spence, who had testified, was shot dead weeks after appearing in court. The other two witnesses, who are relatives of Spence, declined to enter the witness protection programme, police said.

COURT DELAYS THWART JUSTICE

The Witness Protection Programme was implemented to deal with the danger witnesses face from criminals who threaten and intimidate them to discourage them from appearing in court.
Various human rights group such as Jamaicans for Justice have received a number of complaints about the programme.

It takes about a year to prepare a legally viable case against persons charged for murder and other offences under the law. After this considerable period has elapsed and the case eventually comes to trial, convictions cannot be secured. The reason is that the witnesses collapse. I remember a few years ago, two very high-profile cases collapsed completely because of lack of witnesses. While all these delays and aborted trials take place, the murderers continue to murder with impunity, one human rights activist said.

Yvonne Sobers of Families Against State Terrorism also believes that the lack of witness protection also works in favour of policemen who murder civilians.

No policeman has been convicted for in any of 650 instances since 1999 where policemen killed civilians. A policeman charged with 11 killings (seven at Braeton and four at Crawle) had his arrest and bail so timed that he was never taken into custody. He was charged after a 30 month-process of investigation followed by ruling followed by inquest followed by further ruling, a statement said.

The Otis Simms, Basil Brown, and Andrae Morris cases show why policemen can expect to kill with impunity. Juries have so far found no one criminally liable for the deaths of Simms and Brown, killed by police in 2003. The inquest into Morris death began in January 2005, 41 months after police killed Morris. The odds continue to go against police being held accountable, as coroners courts have found police criminally liable in only 3 of the past 350 inquests, the statement continued.

Delays increase the chances of injustice. Systems appear designed to frustrate relatives of deceased persons. Witnesses forget, lose interest, migrate or die; exhibits can be lost or mislaid or eaten by rats or burnt in fires. Andrae Morris case, for example, has taken well over three years to reach the coroners courts, Ms. Sobers said.

Ms. Sobers pointed to a case where a man Eric Wedderburn was killed only a few years after his son, Amanie, was killed by a policemans bullet in Negril.

This is a culture in which witnesses are killed in order to frustrate the justice system. Eric was a witness in this case, even if not a material witness. More importantly, he was an agitator of eyewitnesses to his son's killing; he was a driving force behind the struggle to hold state agents accountable for taking life.

Eric Wedderburn's memory needs to be honoured by the quality of investigation that ensures his killers - whoever they may be - are brought to justice, Ms. Sobers said in an email at the time.

The programme is also hindered by a lack of funding with most witnesses earning a paltry $20,000 a month to cover their expenses.

Factors hindering witness protection include limited financial resources, police mistrust, and geographical restrictions The lack of an effective witness protection program led to the dismissal of a number of cases involving killings, the human rights activist said.

There is a general unwillingness on the part of witnesses to come forward and give information as one of the biggest obstacles facing the police. The police alone cannot do it, everybody needs to play their part, another human rights activist said.

Jamaicas dancehall culture reinforces the "informer-fi-dead" mantra and the ever lowering threshold of the brutality of murderers, many criminals, even when caught, can't be kept in jail for many who love their lives and those of their relatives will not want to come forward. Witnesses are routinely killed or their relatives houses torched. The backlog of cases in the Home Circuit Court is also a problem. Absent witnesses was one of the major problems and court officials believe that greater effort must be made to secure witnesses to attend court.

In April 2007, one Supreme Court judge complained that she hoped that the Circuit court did not become a mention court.

During the term, only 48 of the 272 cases scheduled for trial during the Hilary term were disposed. The other 224 cases were transferred to the next session of the Home Circuit Court, which commenced on April 11.

WITNESSES KILLED WHO SPURNED PROTECTION

In November 2001, Everett Edwards, the brother-in-law of slain gas station owner Sylvia Edwards, was slain in broad daylight in the middle of peak hour traffic. He was shot dead a day before he was scheduled to give evidence in the trial of three men for his sister-in-law's kidnapping and murder in 2000. In April of this year, Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, QC, decided not to prosecute the case against Andem because of insufficient evidence. A nolle prosequi was entered when Andem appeared before Justice Kay Beckford in the Home Circuit Court in April.
At the time, Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Dirk Harrison told the court that the two Crown witnesses, Shem Rowe and Alfred George Scott, who had referred to someone called 'Joel' in their statements, had been shot and killed

Family members of witnesses are also fair targets for ruthless gunmen. In March this year, 24-year-old Hopeton Benjamin was shot and killed in Orchid Close, Bushy Park, Clarendon. He was the brother of a man who is believed to be a witness in the 2007 murder of Sergeant Cleveland Wilson. Wilson was shot by gunmen as he sat in a barber's chair having his beard trimmed, in Bushy Park Clarendon. The gunman, the cops said, walked into the yard at approximately 10:50 pm and immediately began firing at Benjamin, hitting him several times all over his body, before fleeing the scene. Benjamin died on the spot.

According to a police source, Benjamin was targeted in order to intimidate his brother, who is said to be the owner of the barber shop in which Sergeant Wilson was killed, and who also allegedly witnessed Sergeant Wilson's death.