Jamaica news digest: Accompong election dispute, police van crash in Trelawny, Shoebury murder acquittals, eastern quake

Five Jamaica Constabulary Force members attached to the Trelawny Division suffered slight harm on Wednesday morning when the official transport they were using flipped on Foreshore Road in Falmouth. A police account put the time near 7:15 a.m. as the driver headed toward Montego Bay and lost command of the vehicle on that stretch of roadway. The crew—three men and two women—were said to be heading to a shooting range. They were assessed at Falmouth Public General Hospital.

At the St. Catherine Parish Court on Tuesday, John Betty and Richard Williams each received a fine of $200,000 or, in the alternative, 30 days in custody after admitting guilt in a matter involving 180 pineapples moved without the paperwork the law demands. Betty was penalised for not producing a receipt; Williams for not issuing one. The court was told that in late April police stopped a vehicle Betty was driving, saw it loaded with pineapples, and asked how she obtained them. She indicated she had bought the load but could not hand over a Rural Agricultural Development Authority receipt. She was detained, and inquiries led police to Williams as the alleged supplier. The pair were prosecuted under the Agricultural Produce Act 2023, which allows penalties up to $3 million or three years’ imprisonment. Senior Parish Court Judge Desiree Allyne presided.

Former Accompong Maroon colonels Meredith Rowe and Ferron Williams, who intend to run in the community’s leadership poll against sitting Chief Richard Curry, say the electoral arrangements he is overseeing are skewed and defective and want the Jamaican government to step in so standards are met. At a Monday news briefing where they declared their candidacies, Rowe said: “We will not support that. It is fake. It is wrong in every way.” He objected to the published calendar—nominations on 15 May and voting seven days later on 22 May—arguing that polls have customarily come 16 to 21 days after nominations and that prior leadership teams consulted contenders early and worked with the Electoral Office of Jamaica to keep things open. Rowe, who led as chief from 1993 to 1998, said the community faces fear and splits without accountability, and that court papers are being prepared. “We are not willing to face the fact with him. We intend to take a legal course through the Supreme Court,” he said, adding that lawyers will seek an injunction. He said the aim is to push Curry to yield office permanently or comply with Maroon norms he has broken. Williams, colonel from 2009 to 2021, aligned with those criticisms and accused Curry of tampering with the voters list, claiming that over four decades the roll reached 1,408 names while roughly 1,400 were added within three months under Curry. He appealed to the government to act before Friday, warning of unrest if the schedule holds, and outlined three recognised paths to Maroon status—birth and upbringing in the community, marriage into it, or at least seven years of residence and service—while questioning whether current vetting follows those rules. Attempts to reach Curry by telephone on Tuesday drew no answer. He has earlier framed the vote as pivotal for the village, telling people to look ahead rather than sow discord. Chief Curry was quoted saying: “This election is not a just about leadership. It is about a legacy. It is about a freedom. It is about a sovereignty,” and pointing to work on widening economic options and self-determination. “We have now showed people that we are capable to steer the Maroon vision and the create a path to driving our own prosperity and economic sustainability,” he said in those remarks.

The Earthquake Unit at the University of the West Indies registered a magnitude 4.4 tremor in eastern Jamaica in the early hours of Wednesday, with preliminary timing near 3:20 a.m. and shaking reported across parts of the east. Scientists placed the epicentre about 10 kilometres south of Albion in St. Thomas, at a focal depth of 11 kilometres.

In Kingston’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, after a four-week hearing, Constables Demaine Campbell and Kenroy Hines were formally cleared on three murder counts tied to the 2013 gun deaths of brothers Andrew and Tristan Bryson and their cousin Kingsley Green at a shop in Shoebury, Westmoreland, on 15 March 2013. Presiding judge Leighton Pusey, accepting no-case submissions from the defence, instructed the jury to return not-guilty verdicts. Officers had recovered an AK-47 rifle and a handgun said to belong to the dead men. The episode had sparked major community protest and friction with police, prompting the case’s transfer from the Trelawny Circuit Court to Kingston and eventually the Supreme Court. Campbell was represented by Peter Champagnie, Sumai Campbell, and Said Bernard; Hines by Jacqueline Samuels Brown and Desiree Lewis.