A MURDER suspect has been arrested at a Caribbean hideaway more than two years after a North-East market trader was thrown to his death from a brothel window.
The 37-year-old man from Middlesbrough is due to appear in court in Jamaica today when police will apply for him to be extradited.
His arrest on Tuesday came after a lengthy investigation by Cleveland Police following the death of father-of-five Kalvant Singh in August 2001.
Mr Singh, 41, died after being thrown from a bedroom window of a house in Erroll Street, Middlesbrough, when he innocently got caught up in a turf war over the control of drugs and prostitutes.
Two men - Thomas Petch, then aged 23, and 41-year-old George Coleman - were found guilty of murder and jailed for life in March last year.
A third man, Jonathan Crossling, fled to Spain, but was traced by police and brought back to the UK after lengthy extradition wranglings to be tried for his part in Mr Singh's death.
Crossling, 37, appeared at Newcastle Crown Court in June and was jailed for 18 years after he admitted manslaughter.
The fourth man will appear before a judge at a court in Kingston.
Chief Superintendent Mark Braithwaite, who is leading the investigation, said last night: "In relation to crimes of this nature, there can never be a safe haven for those who think they can escape the consequences of their actions by fleeing jurisdiction."
The international arrest plan was co-ordinated by Cleveland Police, with help from Interpol in London, and the suspect was captured by the Jamaican authorities.
Newcastle Crown Court heard how Petch, of Parkhouse Farm, Dunsdale, near Guisborough, and Coleman, of Thornton Street, Northy Ormsby, near Middlesbrough, went on a two-day rampage of violence across the town's red light district.
They were also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to a man who had his head slammed into a fish tank at the brothel in Erroll Street.
After the attack, Coleman drove Petch to bedsits in nearby Southfield Road, where he beat two other men and cut them with a sword, and the following day he attacked another man.
Police believe Coleman, Petch and Crossling were part of a gang who went looking for a rival they accused of robbing prostitutes of the drugs they had previously been supplied.
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