FOURTEEN former members of the Grenada revolutionary government, who were jailed after the invasion of the island by the United States in 1983, begin an appeal today that could lead to their release after twenty-one years in jail. The appeal is being brought to contest the legality and constitutionality of the 1986 trial and conviction of the men, who include Bernard Coard, the former Deputy Prime Minister. Originally they were sentenced to death for their role in the 1983 coup and subsequent execution of Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister, which led to the intervention by the United States. Three others received lengthy prison sentences. Coard’s wife, Phyllis, was freed in 2000 to undergo cancer treatment. Campaigners for the “Grenada 17” — members of the New Jewel movement — say that they are hopeful that the hearing today at the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, sitting in St Lucia, will put an end to a “travesty of justice”. Alan Scott, the London-based secretary of the Committee for Human Rights in Grenada, said: “The world has more or less turned a blind eye to the reality of this injustice, but this travesty must be brought to an end. These are undoubtedly the last of the Cold War’s prisoners and we want an immediate end to their suffering.” Over the years the case against the men has eroded. From the start, the 1986 trial was criticised for irregularities, including the obtaining of confessions by torture and the use of uncorroborated evidence. The Court of Appeal upheld the original death sentences in 1991, but was criticised for not providing a written explanation of its decision. The sentences were commuted to life terms later. The case was taken up by Amnesty International. In a report last November it described the 1986 trial as a miscarriage of justice and said that Coard and the others “should not continue to be imprisoned following convictions obtained via a process that was a gross violation of international standards”. It called for an independent judicial review of the case. Then, in April this year, in an unexpected reversal, the Grenada High Court ruled that the death sentence was illegal and unconstitutional and that the court’s failure to deliver a High Court judgment on such a substantial matter was illegal. The judge ruled that the men should be resentenced within 42 days, but the Government of Grenada requested a stay in the proceedings. Despite the efforts of campaigners for the release of the Grenada 17, the case still stirs bitter memories in the island, which has a population of barely 100,000. Grenada briefly became an unlikely focal point of the Cold War after Mr Bishop led a bloodless coup and installed a Marxist government in 1979. In October 1983 a hardline Marxist-Leninist faction staged a coup and killed Mr Bishop and ten supporters before a firing squad . The killings not only shocked the English-speaking Caribbean but also triggered a stunned response from the Reagan Administration, which was deeply concerned by the spread of communism in the region. Only six days after Bishop’s death, Grenadians woke to the sound of American helicopter gunships flying overhead. Despite international condemnation of the invasion, most Grenadians welcomed the 6,000 US Marines who came ashore. The Reagan Administration said that the invasion was necessary to restore order and protect the lives of hundreds of American medical students on the island. US officials were also concerned by the involvement of President Castro of Cuba in building a new airport on the island, which Washington feared might become a joint Cuban-Soviet base. Cuba insisted it was helping to build the airport for civilian uses only. The invasion remains controversial in part because of official secrecy and the lack of clarity over what happened, including the number of Grenadians killed. The United States says that 45 Grenadians, 24 Cubans and 19 US troops died in the action. Two decades later many younger Grenadians are critical of the treatment of the jailed men and say that the US should have allowed the island to sort out its own problems. They also accuse the US of unfairly influencing the trial. Coard has said he regrets the death of Bishop and others. “We had a situation that unfolded spontaneously,” he said recently, recalling the coup. “No one could have conceivably predicted what happened. There was no plan to kill anybody. I was never into that.” These days most islanders are more concerned about efforts to rebuild their homes after Hurricane Ivan tore through the island on September 7, killing 39 people and damaging or destroying 90 per cent of the island’s buildings, including its notorious 17th-century Richmond Hill Prison, where the jailed revolutionaries are detained. Reprinted from timesonline.co.uk