Police Commissioner Owen Ellington is reportedly contemplating legal action to protect his reputation, in response to recent news reports that he regards as damaging and without basis.
Howard Mitchell, a spokesman for the Commissioner, told RJR’s Earl Moxam, on Monday that some of these reports, including one in the Gleaner newspaper on Monday, were very troubling.
“We are concerned about it because it is reputational damage to a man who has dedicated his life to the particular profession that he’s in… The logic of it is that similar to somebody saying that because the Pope of the Catholic Church has a friend who participated in sexual abuse of little boys, that he may be implicated. There is absolutely no logical connection!”
Pressed as to whether the Police Commissioner was denying any such connection or inference, Mitchell, an attorney by training, responded “categorically,” that Mr. Ellington was “denying any inference, in respect of the publication in the newspaper, any knowledge of, any dealings with or any relationship to the particular incident that has been alleged.
Mr. Ellington surprisingly announced his early retirement last week, citing his desire to remove himself from the command of the police force while the Commission of Inquiry into the 2010 Tivoli incursion is being held, and the trial of police officers accused of being part of a “death squad” is taking place.
It has subsequently emerged that the Commissioner might have acted in response to pressure from foreign governments, particularly the United States, for him to demit office because he was in the charge of the police during the Tivoli operations and during the emergence of allegations that there has been an organised programme of extra judicial killings by the police in the Central Jamaica parish of Clarendon.
It has further emerged that the US Government might have imposed a limited arms embargo on Jamaica, under the provisions of the Leahy Law.
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Ellington contemplating legal action
