(Jamaica Observer) Professor Trevor Munroe wants the Government to begin examining ways to make it difficult for lawyers representing persons charged with certain criminal offences to receive payments from the funds of their clients’ ill-gotten enterprises.
“I would like to see in Jamaica a version of the law in the United States that lawyers, who are defending persons alleged to be engaged in money laundering, gun running and drug trafficking demonstrate that the earnings from that defence are not part of ill-gotten gains. I believe that is certainly a topic worthy of discussion…,” said Munroe, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies and former senator.
He was responding to questions following his keynote address Tuesday night at the Public Relations Society of Jamaica (PSRJ) monthly meeting in Kingston.
His views, however, came in light of the recent court appearance in New York of alleged Jamaican drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, where lawyers made it clear that they would have to be assured that money paid to the defence in the drug and gun trafficking case was not tainted.