ST JAMES, Jamaica —The three-year-long trial of four businessmen who are accused of being major players in a drug smuggling and money laundering ring between Jamaica and the United States is set to continue on March 24.

The decision was made when the men — Montego Bay residents Robert Dunbar, Delroy Gayle, and Louis Smith along with United States citizen Melford Daley — appeared before presiding Parish Judge Kaysha Grant on Friday.

The trial had been scheduled to continue but the judge presiding over the case was unavoidably absent.

The four men are being represented by attorneys-at-law Hugh Wildman, Tom Tavares Finson, Martyn Thomas and Oswest Senior-Smith, respectively.

In September 2019 when the trial began in the St James Parish Court before Parish Judge Sandria Wong Small, Wildman made an application for it to be discontinued on the basis that the charge was illegal because it was brought under the repealed Money Laundering Act of 1998, which was replaced by the Proceeds of Crime Act in May 2007.

But the application was refused and the trial continued.

That same month Wildman then petitioned the Supreme Court for a judicial review, and Justice Courtney Daye granted an order halting the trial until a judicial review application was heard.

The Supreme Court’s order came into effect after Christopher Drummond, a key prosecution witness who is now serving a 27-year prison sentence in the United States for drug smuggling, gave evidence against the four.

In February 2020 the Supreme Court, through presiding High Court Justice Simone Wolfe-Reece, rejected an application made on Smith’s behalf by Wildman in which the defendant sought a declaration from the court that the initiating of criminal proceedings against him was null, void, and of no effect. That decision by the judge paved the way for the resumption of the trial proceedings in the St James Parish Court.

The allegations against the men are that they were involved in drug trafficking between Jamaica and the United States between 1999 and 2005.

Dunbar, Gayle and Smith were arrested on August 30, 2013 during simultaneous raids at their respective residences by officers from MOCA, who worked in collaboration with the Financial Investigations Division. Subsequent investigations led to charges being levelled against Daley.