PNP candidate blames farmer’s shooting on political violence
MOUNT PIECE, Hanover – Ian Hayles, the People’s National Party (PNP) caretaker for Western Hanover, alleged yesterday that the shooting and injury of Buxton Moncrieffe, a 40-year-old farmer from this rural community, was politically motivated.
Hayles said Moncrieffe, whose one-bedroom board house was also burnt by his attackers, had recently switched allegiance from the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
However, the mayor of Lucea Lester Crooks, yesterday denied any knowledge of Moncriffe changing political sides.
“He is a supporter of my party (JLP),” Crooks told the Observer.
Hayles, a one-time vice-president of the JLP affiliate group, Generation 2000, told the Observer that Moncrieffe had been receiving death threats since he switched allegiance from the JLP a few weeks ago.
“A few weeks ago he decided to join the People’s National Party; he was an active supporter and influential person within the Jamaica Labour Party at the local level in the Riverside division. Since he joined up with us he has been getting a lot of death threats and he came to my office last Wednesday and Thursday and complained about the death threats that he has been getting,” said Hayles.
He added: “I am quite sure it is politically motivated. He had complained to me that a few gentlemen. came to him and basically tried to bring him back home to the fold and he has decided not to go. He has decided to support the People’s National Party and that is where the problem is right now.”
Hayles said, however, that Moncrieffe had not reported the threats to the police.
According to Constable Rohan Reid, the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) liaison officer for Hanover, at about 3:30 am Sunday, Moncrieffe was reportedly asleep inside his house when he was awoken by the smell of gas.
He got up to investigate when he saw three men in his yard.
The farmer, who realised that his house was ablaze, opened the back door in an attempt to escape, but was shot in the right side of his chest.
He retreated his steps and ran through the front door when he was shot twice – once to the right leg and another to his thigh, the CCN spokesman said.