CONFIDENTIAL
BIEU-E!
position to the Chief Minister when he visited London last week. In Anguilla where we had been faced with a difficult problem (a Grenadian sentenced to death for murdering a fellow Grenadian) the Governor, who was aware of my views, took a decision on 4 March, to commute the sentence to one of life imprisonment. Ministers there appear to have accepted his decision and will go along with abolition. The response from the Caymans, from Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands, was broadly similar. Popular opinion divides between those who consider that retention on the statute book is a deterrent, those who believe, Caribbean style, in biblical retribution, and those who feel that the death penalty should no longer be part of a modern society.
it is what they The majority probably prefer retention
are familiar with - and worry that abolition will increase the murder rate. They also seek assurance that life sentences would be given instead. If we abolish, some hot tempered speeches will be made but we do not believe it will spark any serious unrest.
3. In the case of Bermuda, which is not immediately affected by the Order in Council, the Premier,
Sir J Swan, noted that the implementation of the Order would leave Bermuda as the only dependent territory which had not abandoned capital punishment.
4.
The public controversy aroused in early March by Jamaica's decision (since retracted after international representations) to execute two prisoners who had been on
CONFIDENTIAL
/Death