Three coup leaders released from prison
ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada – Three participants in a 1983 palace coup walked out of prison Wednesday after nearly a quarter century behind bars for an attack that led to a U.S. invasion of Grenada.
The 10 other coup leaders still in prison will serve less than two more years under the sentences issued earlier in the day by a judge who said all 13 had demonstrated remorse.
The defendants originally were sentenced to death in 1986 for the killings of former socialist leader Maurice Bishop, four Cabinet members and six supporters.
“I really thank God for this moment,” said Christopher Stroude, who hugged his attorneys outside the crumbling 17th-century Richmond Hill Prison. “I’m looking forward to reuniting with my family.”
It was a moment of vindication for Stroude and his fellow coup participants, who stayed put when other inmates escaped after Hurricane Ivan punched holes in the prison’s walls in 2004. Insisting that their sentences were improperly handed down, the former politicians and soldiers said they preferred to wait out their appeals.
The sentences were thrown out in February by the London-based Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for the former British colony, setting up a weeklong resentencing hearing that attracted hundreds of spectators.
During the 1986 trial, prosecutors said that hard-line members of the Marxist government sent soldiers to kill Bishop on Oct. 19, 1983, considering him too moderate.
Six days after the killings, thousands of U.S. troops stormed the Caribbean island on a mission that President Reagan said would restore order, protect American medical students and prevent a buildup of Cuban military advisers and weapons.
On Wednesday, Supreme Court Judge Francis Bell said he showed leniency because the defendants had behaved well behind bars and proven their remorse by inviting the victims’ relatives to prison so they could apologize in person.
Some relatives of people killed in the coup protested, shouting “Murderers! Murderers!” as they stormed out of the courtroom.
Bell ordered Stroude, Lester Redhead and Cecil Prime released first because he said they had played a minor role in the coup.
The judge has not addressed a request to immediately release former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, whose attorneys argue he needs eye surgery.
Two other prisoners with health problems, John Ventour and Colville McBarnette, were ordered to appear before a review board within a year.
Defense attorneys argued that the defendants experienced a “spiritual transformation” in prison, tutoring fellow inmates and earning a total of 10 university degrees by correspondence in law, economics, sociology and theology.
But prosecutors said their expressions of remorse were not sincere and requested life sentences for all 13 prisoners.
The bodies of Bishop and the other victims have never been found. Prime Minister Keith Mitchell asked for help from the United States last week to recover them and close a bitter chapter in the island’s history.
Four others convicted in 1986 were spared death sentences. They included Coard’s wife, who was freed in 2000 to undergo cancer treatment.