Jamaica death toll hits 73

KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 27 (UPI) -- Fighting between Jamaican forces and supporters of a reputed drug lord continued in Kingston Thursday with the death toll reaching 73, authorities said.

On the fifth day of urban violence, sections of the capital remained under a state of emergency as the manhunt continued for alleged drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke, considered a hero by some but wanted for extradition to the United States on drug-trafficking and gun-running charges, The New York Times reported Thursday.

"We are still searching for Mr. Coke," police spokesman Glenmore Hinds said.

The Times said authorities had recovered the bodies of 73 civilians in Kingston. Hinds said six of the dead may have been killed in situations unrelated to the battles between police and government troops and Coke loyalists.

Another 26 civilians were wounded, Hinds told the Times.

At least 260 persons have been detained, The Gleaner newspaper in Kingston reported.

Asked about residents' accusations of human-rights violations by soldiers and police officers, and extrajudicial killings, all slayings in the country are investigated without exception.

Ferdinand Madden, chief executive of Madden's Funeral Supplies and Crematorium, told The Gleaner morgues in the Kingston area were nearing capacity.

The Jamaican government's decision to execute an arrest warrant for Coke -- after resisting for months -- is what ignited the violence. Coke's supporters battled security forces and barricaded Tivoli Gardens, Coke's stronghold, to keep authorities out.

"Christopher Coke is a Robin Hood, Pablo Escobar-type of corrupter," David Rowe, a Jamaican lawyer and extradition specialist, told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview. "He spends (his) money on the community that he lives in ... and they think of him as a hero. (But) he is to the rest of Jamaica a desperado who has destroyed our international reputation and seriously affected the bilateral relationship between Jamaica and the U.S."