AfriKa CRY BLOOD

The question of how I’Akobi met his death has still been left unanswered after approximately 10 months of deliberations both inside and out of court. Although the coroner had dismissed the idea of I’Akobi going to the cliff with the intention of taking his own life, the verdict of misadventure is still debatable.

In her context it was defined as the act of running from the police which inadvertently resulted in his death. Our family vehemently refutes the coroner’s claim in this regard; as the act of running towards what the police perceived to be a 60 ft. drop head first with hands outstretched in this ‘mad’ dash for freedom quintessentially describes the act of suicide.

Although the coroner removed the police’s postulations of why he had taken his life that being (depression, homosexuality, madness and drug association), she inadvertently or intentionally accepted the single report submitted by Headley and Walkes as the irrevocable truth. (more…)

by Maria Bradshaw

I’AKOBI MALONEY was not killed by police, neither did he commit suicide. His death was ruled a misadventure.

SERGEANT WINGROVE HEADLEY (right) being escorted into the officer of the Coroner's Court by uniformed officers yesterday.

Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris handed down this decision yesterday six months after the start of the inquiry into the death of the 23-year-old Exhibition winner whom police said jumped off a 50-ft cliff at Landlock, St Lucy, last June 17, as he was about to be escorted to the Holetown Police Station.

The coroner found there was no evidence to substantiate that Maloney had been unlawfully killed by the police or that he committed suicide.

She surmised that Maloney, a Rastafarian, may have felt some form of harassment when the police requested that he accompany them to the station and so “he panicked and made a sudden dash for freedom”.

But while the coroner cited the mutual distrust between the Rastafarian community and the police and called for improved relations between the two, the verdict was not accepted by the many Rastafarian brethren who turned out yesterday.

They gathered in the courtyard surrounding Maloney’s grieving mother, Marguerita, and let it be known that there would be no peace between them and the police.

Marshall-Harris spent close to two hours reviewing the case and analysing the evidence. (more…)

by Maria Bradshaw

JASON COLLYMORE denied yesterday that he had a homosexual relationship with Shon Boyce and reiterated that I’Akobi Maloney never visited his house.

Collymore, a supervisor at the Ararwak Cement Plant, told Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris yesterday at the coroner’s inquest into Maloney’s death that everything Boyce told the court last week was “absolutely untrue”.

Taking the witness stand for the third time during the inquest, he told the court that three days after giving his testimony on January 13, he received a telephone call from Boyce.

“He said to me how come he was involved in the inquest, that the police was pressuring him to make a statement that I was a homosexual and that he saw I’Akobi at my house.”

Collymore said he was so frustrated that week with the number of calls he had been receiving from family and friends that he told Boyce “do what you want to do” and then pressed out the phone. (more…)

A NEW WITNESS took the stand yesterday at the I’Akobi Maloney Inquest at Coroner’s Court.

Shon Boyce, who admitted to being a homosexual from his childhood days said he was introduced to Jason Collymore, a former witness at the inquest, in 2003.

He was introduced to Collymore, he said, and they subsequently got involved in a same-sex relationship where he was the outside man, since Collymore, who works at the Cement Plant, told him that he had a Rastaman and he, Boyce, should never come to the house when the man was there.

He said Collymore lived at White Hall Main Road in an apartment, and he did not know the Rastaman’s name as it was never told to him, but he used to pass a man on the stairway going down smiling as he would be going up. (more…)