LESTER REDHEAD IS INNOCENT

Lester Redhead is one of the 17 presently in prison for the murder of Maurice Bishop and others. At the trial in 1986, the most vicious piece of evidence imaginable was presented against Redhead. One witness described how Redhead shot Bishop and when Bishop fell how Redhead went up to him, took out a knife, cut his throat and then cut off a finger of Bishop which had a ring on it. This gruesome piece of evidence almost cost Lester his life. In July 1991 he was nearly hanged along with four others.

And yet there are many people in our community who know that the evidence described above is a total lie. Many people know that Lester Redhead was not even on Fort Rupert when Maurice Bishop and others were killed.

On October 19^th 1983 Redhead was a captain of the PRA. Fort Rupert was his place of work. After the civilian crowd took over the Fort, Redhead was arrested and held prisoner. He was in the Operations Room when the shooting started. He could have lost his life. He had to dive out a window to save his life.

At the trial Redhead accepted full responsibility for taking some people prisoners after the initial firing ceased as he was entitled to do, given the situation and his position as an army officer. He escorted them to the top of Fort Rupert where the cells are located. Once that was done he immediately left Fort Rupert and went to Fort Frederick to inform his commanders of the state of affairs at the army headquarters.

When the final burst of fire took place on Fort Rupert, the firing which it is accepted killed Bishop and others, Redhead was still on Fort Frederick. He was unaware at that moment that Bishop and others had been killed. He departed Fort Frederick and when he arrived back on Fort Rupert, to his dismay, Bishop and others were dead.

Redhead was therefore not part of killing anyone. He was at least two miles away from Fort Rupert when Bishop and others, for whose murders he is convicted, were killed. The story against him, which nearly caused him to be hanged, and has him rotting in prison for 16 years, was fabricated.

Captain Lester Redhead was one of the most outstanding field commanders in the PRA. He was a highly committed revolutionary. At the age of nineteen he risked his life in the assault on the True Blue barracks which heralded the Grenada Revolution.

By 1983 he rose to be a senior commander in the PRA. During the invasion, Redhead was the commander of one of the units which heroically resisted the U.S forces in the south of the island and inflicted serious losses on them.

From the first hour of the invasion the U.S forces understood the importance of Captain Redhead. They therefore faked a radio message, which they sent to the PRA, stating that Captain Redhead had been captured by the US forces. This was aimed at demoralising the PRA forces. The Americans clearly had a file on Redhead.

Redhead, of course, had not been captured. He continued to resist the invaders.

Once the PRA's resistance dissipated and Redhead was captured, there was no way that the invading forces intended to let this man they considered so dangerous to go free. They therefore decided to frame him and frame him so badly that he would be hanged. They nearly succeeded.

But Lester has not given up. He has exerted much effort in improving himself academically. From behind bars he has obtained four O'levels and two A' level passes and presently he is into the second level of the ACCA professional accounting qualification. Lester plans to migrate and pursue a career in accountancy whenever he is freed.