Independent investigative commission charges police officer in southwest Jamaica with murder

KINGSTON, Jamaica _ A Jamaican agency that investigates abuse allegations against the island’s security forces says a police officer has been arrested and charged with murder.

The Independent Commission of Investigations says Cpl. Selvin Williams was charged Wednesday with killing a man in the southwestern parish of St. Elizabeth in December 2012.

At the time, police reported that Williams intervened in a bar fight when farmer Valbert Salmon was killed. The commission says it has evidence to warrant a murder charge.

The officer has been granted $2,000 bail. He has to surrender his travel documents and report to a police station during daylight hours. A court hearing is scheduled for January.

Earlier this year, the investigative commission levied murder charges against eight police officers in a single police division in central Clarendon parish.