Former deputy prime minister in the left-wing People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), Bernard Coard. *Photo credit: www.trinidadexpress.com

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – Opposition Leader Dr. Keith Mitchell has called for proof that his administration had blocked attempts to recover the bodies of former prime minister Maurice Bishop and other members of his cabinet killed during the 1983 coup.

Mitchell has called on Bernard Coard, the former deputy prime minister in the left-wing People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), “to give a full and credible account of the events that took place in Grenada from October 19 to October 25” when the internal rift within the PRG led to Bishop’s assassination.

Coard, 65, along with 13 other prisoners, including Dave Bartholomew, Callistus Bernard, Leon Cornwall, Liam James, and Ewart Layne – former members of the now defunct People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA), were given an early release last September after spending 26 years in prison for the murder of Bishop and others on October 25, 1983.

Coard and his wife, Phyllis, were among 17 persons convicted of murdering Bishop and others, whose bodies have never been found.

Mitchell has denied a report in the Morning Star newspaper in Britain that quoted Coard as accusing the NNP administration and the United States of America of hindering efforts to uncover the truth about the missing bodies.

“Grenada’s Leader of the Opposition, Dr. The Right Hon. Keith Mitchell has called on former Leader of the Grenada Revolutionary Government, Bernard Coard, to provide concrete evidence for the claims that he has made about the disappearance of the bodies of former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and Members of his Cabinet,” the main opposition New National Party (NNP) said in a statement.

“Dr. Mitchell categorically denies any such involvement. Dr. Mitchell emphasised that Coard has continued to implicate others in the disappearance of those bodies and that Coard should now give a full and credible account of the events that took place in Grenada from October 19th to October 25th, the period that preceded the arrival of United States troops in Grenada”.

Following his release from prison, Coard, who is now on a six-month visit to Jamaica, called on the Obama administration in the United States to clarify the issue of the missing bodies.

“I want to say to the new administration that there will be embarrassment over denying it all the time and trying to put the blame on the 17 knowing full well that you have it. You, in the new administration, you had no part in this. You have an opportunity now to start the slate clean.”

A number of prominent Grenadians including former governor general, Sir Paul Scoon, have been quoted as saying that Bishop’s body and the bodies of his colleagues were destroyed and disposed of before the United States troops landed in Grenada in l983.