ORDERS WERE given by a Portmore gang leader for the assassination of a Cabinet minister, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said in a stunning revelation in Parliament yesterday.

The prime minister told his parliamentary colleagues the alleged don gave the instructions while he was behind bars.

However, he did not name the minister or the man who allegedly gave the order.

"Even in incarceration he is conducting his criminal enterprise. I happen to know about it.

"I had to order additional security to be assigned to one of my ministers because his assassination was ordered by that individual," Golding said.

He argued: "It is a reflection of the kind of networking that exists, where you don't have to be near the scene of the crime, you don't have to be engaged in any way in the commission of the crime."

Golding was debating a resolution to extend the state of public emergency in Kingston and St Andrew.

St Catherine South Member of Parliament Fitz Jackson had earlier accused some of his parliamentary colleagues of being "hypocrites" in their criticism of the state of emergency.

Criminal mastermind

It was Jackson who first commented on the terror that was being unleashed on residents in a section of his constituency in Portmore by the criminal mastermind later mentioned by Golding.

"Before the state of emergency, and before the incursion into Tivoli Gardens, there was a section of my constituency where murder was almost a daily activity ... and in the instant case, information from the security forces is that the perpetrator of those murders is behind bars," he said.