CASTRIES, St Lucia (AP) - Thirteen prisoners convicted of killing Grenada's leader and Cabinet ministers in a 1983 coup could see their freedom if the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal sides with them in hearings that opened yesterday. The coup prompted a US-led invasion of the Caribbean island in one of the last conflicts of the Cold War. The prisoners have spent years in prison, maintaining hopes of overturning their convictions. The prisoners contend that death sentences imposed in 1986 - and later commuted to life sentences - were unconstitutional and illegal. In March, Grenada's High Court overturned the prisoners' life terms, saying the initial death sentences were unconstitutional. The High Court was set to resentence them within 42 days, but the government appealed to the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal. Among the prisoners are former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and Hudson Austin, a former army commander. Originally, 17 people were sentenced for their role in the coup, but Coard's wife, Phyllis, was freed in 2000 to undergo cancer treatment and now lives in Kingston, Jamaica. Three other prisoners are not involved in the current case because they were not given death sentences. The Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal heard opening arguments from lawyers yesterday and will resume the hearing today. A decision was expected later this week. Attorney Keith Scotland, representing the accused, is seeking to capitalise on the March ruling by Justice Kenneth Benjamin of the Grenada High Court that the sentences were unconstitutional and illegal. Scotland is seeking not only his clients' release, but also plans to ask the court to pay them monetary compensation, as Benjamin had ordered. Attorney Karl Hudson-Phillips, representing Grenada's government, spent about 80 minutes addressing the court yesterday, making the case against Benjamin's ruling. He told the appeals court - Justices Brian Alleyne, Michael Gordon and Suzie d'Auvergne - that Benjamin had erred when he ruled that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional and illegal. Hudson-Phillips also questioned the action of the governor-general in commuting the death sentences as "an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the court". During the trial, prosecutors said a power struggle prompted Coard to send soldiers to kill Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, four Cabinet ministers and six supporters on October 19, 1983. The coup was carried out by hard-liners of Bishop's Marxist movement. To this day some Grenadians complain of US meddling in the trial that convicted the so-called "Grenada 17". Some defence witnesses were barred, and prosecutors and judges were paid with a US$3.5 million grant from the US government, according to Richard Hart, who briefly served as attorney general under Bishop. "We would argue they've never received a proper trial," Alan Scott, secretary of the Committee for Human Rights in Grenada, said in a phone interview from Britain. "In a proper court of law, these individuals would never have been found guilty of anything." Six days after the killings, thousands of US troops stormed the island on a mission that US President Ronald Reagan said was aimed at restoring order, protecting hundreds of American medical students and preventing a build-up of Cuban military advisers and weapons. Some details remain unclear, including the number of Grenadians killed and the whereabouts of Bishop's body. The US government puts the death toll at 19 Americans, 45 Grenadians and 24 Cubans. SOURCE: JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM