Plea for sanctions over Jamaica death penalty

AID FOR Jamaica should be suspended by London and Brussels because its record on capital punishment is in breach of basic human rights, Gerald Kaufman, Labour's former foreign affairs spokesman, said yesterday, writes Anthony Bevins.

Mr Kaufman said: 'There are 270 people on death row in a country of 2 million people; it's as though we in this country had 7,500 people awaiting execution.

'Jamaica has one of the worst records on human rights of any democracy. But they won't listen to reason, or respond, and that being the case it is necessary that they should be pushed.'

Mr Kaufman has had a long- standing correspondence with one of the condemned men. 'He has been on death row since 1979, and he is only 34. That's nearly half his life in a condemned cell.'

He said he would be urging the Government and the EC to withdraw either aid or favourable trading arrangements. But in a Commons reply this week, John Major rejected Mr Kaufman's plea. He said human rights were taken into account in aid policy, but added: 'We have no plans to argue for the suspension of economic aid to, and favourable trade arrangements with, Jamaica.'

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council - the final court of appeal for Jamaica - and Amnesty International have both criticised its judicial process.