Mag­is­trate Michael Lau­dat Fri­day or­dered that for­mer prime min­is­ter Edi­son James be com­mit­ted to prison await­ing pos­si­ble bail as the tri­al con­tin­ued in­to the in­cite­ment case in­volv­ing se­nior mem­bers of the main op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty (UWP).

James, 80, served as prime min­is­ter 1995-2000 and has been at the cen­ter of an al­leged in­cite­ment case with for­mer op­po­si­tion leader Lennox Lin­ton and the cur­rent UWP leader Dr. Thom­son Fontaine.

The for­mer Prime Min­is­ter was placed in a hold­ing cell at the Mag­is­trate’s court in Roseau.

Ac­cord­ing to the charge against James, on Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2017 he was in­volved in in­cite­ment by en­cour­ag­ing, per­suad­ing, or in­sti­gat­ing by words, caus­ing per­sons to jeop­ar­dize the safe­ty or en­dan­ger the pub­lic peace, fol­low­ing a UWP meet­ing at which calls were made for the res­ig­na­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit.

ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca, Feb 16, CMC