ST GEORGE'S, Grenada (6/10/07) – Justice Francis Bell of St Kitts and
Nevis will be the presiding judge at the re-sentencing hearing for
Bernard Coard and 12 others involved in the killing of the late former
Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

Registrar at the Supreme Court Robert Branch said Justice Bell is coming
in specifically for the case and the hearing will be held under tight
security.

Earlier this year the British-based Privy Council, the country's final
appellate court, ruled that the men's
death sentences should be quashed and a hearing held for their
re-sentencing.

In its ruling the Privy Council stated that "the question of the
appellants fate is so politically charged that it is hardly reasonable
to expect any Government of Grenada to take an objective view of the
matter" even after 23 years.

It ordered that the case should, therefore, be referred back to local
judges for a new sentencing determination "taking into account the
progress made by the appellants during their time in prison".

The re-sentencing hearing, which begins on June 18, is expected to last
a week during which lawyers for the accused will make submissions on
their behalf.

In 1983, Coard, Callistus Bernard, Lester Redhead, Christopher Stroude,
Hudson Austin, Liam James, Leon Cornwall, John Ventour, Dave
Bartholomew, Ewart Layne, Colville McBarnett, Selwyn Strachan, Cecil
Prime, Andy Mitchell, Vincent Joseph and Cosmos Richardson were found
guilty of killing Bishop and a number of his cabinet members during a
bloody coup attempt.

After what was described as an unfair trial, they were sentenced to
death. The sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1991 for all
except Cosmos Richardson, Andy Mitchell and Vincent Joseph who were
sentencedto 45-years behind bars.

The Law Lords ruled that the death sentences originally imposed in the
cases were unconstitutional, and that this also invalidated the process
by which those sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment.

In December 2006, Mitchell, Joseph and Richardson were released after
their 45-year prison sentences were reduced for good behaviour. (CMC)

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This report taken from 'The Nation' of Barbados