Lenford Harvey

Lenford "Steve" Harvey was a Jamaican activist who campaigned for the rights of those living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaican society. In November 2005, he was abducted from his home and murdered in a robbery that some commentators believed was also a homophobic hate crime. Harvey, an openly gay man, had worked for Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL), since 1997 becoming the group's coordinator for Kingston. In this position, he focused on distributing information and services surrounding HIV/AIDS to the most marginalised sectors of Jamaican society, among them prisoners, sex workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In 2005, he was selected as Jamaica's project coordinator for the Latin America and Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organizations. Harvey was praised for his work. According to Peter Tatchell of the British LGBT rights organisation OutRage!, "It is thanks to the efforts of Steve and his colleagues that many Jamaican men and women - both gay and straight - have not contracted HIV. They have helped save hundreds of lives." an organisation that was a partner of Christian Aid. He became the group's Kingston co-ordinator, and in this position primarily worked to ensure that the marginalised groups within the country – including prisoners, sex workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people – had access to information about the HIV virus. The country's laws criminalising same-sex activity between males were introduced in 1864, during the British colonial administration. According to the Sexual Offences Act of 2009, any man convicted under these laws must register as a sex offender. These laws have been cited as contributing to wider homophobic attitudes among the Jamaican populace,

Two hours later, Harvey's corpse was found at Pinewood Terrace, a rural area far from his home; his body had gunshot wounds in the head and back. Harvey's clothes, suitcases, jewellery, cellphones, and watches were recovered by police. while an editorial in The New York Times noted that "the Harvey killing has the earmarks of a hate crime".

Arrest and trial

Following investigations, in 2005 police arrested four individuals – Dwayne Owen, Andre West, Ryan Wilson, and Chevaughn Gibson – charging them all with committing murder in the furtherance of a robbery. Senior Puisne Judge Gloria Smith stated that no further adjournments of the case would be permitted, ordering the Director of Public Prosecutions to make full disclosure to the defence, and insisting that the trial must start on 19 May. In her words, "This case has been going on for far too long and has reached the point where something must happen." At that date it was again postponed, this time due to a shortage of available jurors, with the new date being set for 7 July.

In early July 2014, the prosecution announced that they were dropping all charges against Wilson, who was declared free to go after over eight years in prison. The state prosecutors, Kathy Pryce and Karen Seymour Johnson, requested that Owen and West face the death penalty. In December, both Owen and West launched appeals against their conviction.

Independently of the Harvey case, West was also charged with being involved in the murder of Jamie Lue, a financial analyst at Alliance Capital Limited, who had been abducted, robbed, and killed in December 2005. Rebecca Schleifer, a researcher with Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program, stated that Harvey was "a person of extraordinary bravery and integrity, who worked tirelessly to ensure that some of Jamaica's most marginalized people had the tools and information to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS".