22nd
3 o’clock - roadblock
Sunday, on our way back from breakfast at Hellshire Beach, we passed through a police roadblock on Mandela Highway. Today, more than a month after l’affaire Dudus began, the police finally caught him - not in Tivoli, not in a raid of an uptown house, but at that very same roadblock between Spanish Town and Kingston.
Reportedly, Dudus was traveling with Rev. Al Miller, on his way to the US Embassy to waive extradition and turn himself in. Inexplicably, the police let Rev. Miller go, and are now appealing to him to turn himself in with his lawyer for questioning. Dudus was transported to the Spanish Town Police Station, then Spanish Town prison, and then airlifted back into Kingston, where he is awaiting a court date that they say will be set in the next couple of days.
My guess: the Jamaican government will use the delay to try and charge him with a crime based on information they have obtained during the detention and inquisition, and will resist handing him over to the US on the grounds that they want to prosecute him domestically first. It will be an interesting few days watching how this further unfolds…whether the US turns the screws to get custody of him, or whether they are diplomatically required to respect the autonomy of the Jamaican people to prosecute their own, even if it is merely a ploy to prevent Jamaica’s leaders from being implicated in criminal activity. Stay tuned…
