Friday, August 18, 2006

LONDON, England (AFP): A Jamaican "Yardie" gangster was jailed for life in Britain Thursday after being convicted of shooting dead three members of the same family when he was double-crossed in an international drugs deal.

Rohan Chung, 30, was told he would serve at least 40 years in prison for killing Noel Patterson, 62, and his step-daughters Lorna Morrison, 34, and Connie Morrison, 27, in Harlesden, northwest London in August last year.

Both Patterson and Connie Morrison's hands had been tied behind their backs with tape before being shot in the face and head; Lorna Morrison's nine-month-old son was found unharmed but crawling in the victims' blood.

Detectives from London's Metropolitan Police said the brutal killings brought so-called "black on black" gun crime in the British capital to a new low.

"These shootings have plunged gun crime to new depths of depravity," said Detective Inspector Steve Horsley. "I have never before come across a case where family members have been killed in revenge."

The victims' remaining family members are now in hiding, in fear of their lives, he added.

London's Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, was told that Chung, who used the street name "Chunky", had twice been deported from Britain -- once in 1994 and again in 2000, three years after being convicted of firearms offences.

He had been found guilty of the firearms charges at the Old Bailey in 1997 but cleared of murder and attempted murder following shootings in London and Birmingham.

Chung returned to Britain in July 2004 using one of his many aliases, disappearing into the criminal underworld after hoodwinking immigration officials in London that he had missed his connecting flight to Paris.

Prosecutors said the spur for the triple killing came when the sisters' brother Morgan "Indian" Morrison disappeared while acting as a drugs mule for Chung, and he appeared to want to keep the contraband for himself.

Judge Gerald Gordon on Thursday recommended Chung, from South Norwood, south London, be deported after serving his sentence in Britain for the "truly appalling crimes".

Fellow gunman Michael Letts, 36, of Stoke Newington, north London, was convicted of the same offences and told he will spend at least 20 years behind bars. Both men had pleaded not guilty.

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