This article is more than 10 years old

This article is more than 10 years old

Masked men defending a reputed druglord wanted by the United States burned down a police station and traded gunfire with security forces in a patchwork of barricaded slums in Jamaica's capital yesterday.

The gunmen are thought to be supporters of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. Photograph: AP

The government declared a state of emergency as sporadic gunshots rang out in impoverished West Kingston, stronghold of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, a Jamaican who is charged in the US with drug and arms trafficking. His defiant supporters turned his Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood and other areas into a fortress with trashed cars and barbed wire.

Four police stations came under heavy fire from gangsters roaming the streets with high-powered guns. In barricaded Hannah Town, close to Tivoli Gardens, black smoke spiralled into the sky from a police station that was set on fire by molotov cocktails.

Officers fled the station in West Kingston, where 25 civilians, a soldier and a police officer were killed in a standoff between gunmen and security forces in 2001.

Authorities said two security officers had been wounded last night and that the attacks were unprovoked. It called for all "decent and law-abiding citizens" in the troubled areas to immediately evacuate their homes and said security forces would ferry them out safely.

Police commissioner Owen Ellington said "scores of criminals" from gangs across the Caribbean island had travelled to West Kingston to join the fight. "It is now clear that criminal elements are determined to launch co-ordinated attacks on the security forces," he said.

The violence erupted after nearly a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the US.

The prime minister, Bruce Golding, had stalled the extradition request for nine months with claims that the US indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence. After Golding reversed his stance amid growing public discontent over his opposition, Coke's supporters began barricading streets and preparing for battle.

Before Sunday's shooting started, police urged Coke to surrender, calling the heavy barricades around his slum stronghold a sign of cowardice.

The UK, the US and Canada issued travel alerts last Friday warning of possible violence and unrest. Most Jamaicans have been avoiding downtown Kingston.

The state of public emergency, limited to the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew, will be in effect for a month unless extended or revoked by lawmakers, the government said.

In a national address last night, Golding said the order gives authorities the power to restrict movement and effectively battle violent criminals. Security forces will also be able to conduct searches and detain people without warrants.

Golding stressed that Kingston "is not being shut down", and that schools and businesses outside the battle zone will be open.

Coke is described as one of the world's most dangerous druglords by the US justice department. He has ties to the governing Jamaica Labour party and holds significant sway over the West Kingston area represented in parliament by Golding.

Golding's fight against the extradition strained relations with Washington, which questioned Jamaica's reliability as an ally in the fight against drugs. His handling of the matter, particularly his hiring of a US firm to lobby Washington to drop the extradition request, provoked an outcry in Jamaica that threatened his political career.

Coke, who typically avoids the limelight, has remained silent. He faces life in prison if convicted on charges filed against him in New York.

His father was the leader of the notorious Shower Posse gang, a cocaine-trafficking mob with agents in Jamaica and the US which began operating in the 1980s and was named for its members' tendency to spray victims with bullets.

The son took over from the father and expanded the gang into selling marijuana and crack cocaine in the New York area and elsewhere, US authorities allege.

Lawyers for Coke, who is also known as Small Man and President, have challenged his extradition in Jamaica's supreme court. As a West Kingston community don, Coke has acted as an ad hoc civic leader and provides protection and jobs.