It was August, 2009, when the U.S. first asked for the extradition of the Jamaican drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke. More than a year passed before his arrest, in June, 2010. The delay led to a diplomatic crisis and one of the bloodiest episodes in Jamaica’s history. Coke barricaded himself inside of Tivoli Gardens, one of Kingston’s so-called garrison communities, politically homogenous enclaves under the control of local dons. On May 23rd, after sporadic gun battles throughout Kingston and the burning of police stations, the Jamaican security forces went in hard, with armored vehicles and helicopters. They fired mortars at a residential neighborhood that still held thousands of civilians, at least seventy-three of whom were killed in the operation. Many appear to have been unarmed people who were rounded up and massacred after the neighborhood was already under control. As I reported for the magazine in December, the U.S. passed intelligence from a Department of Homeland Security surveillance plane to Jamaican forces. The full extent of U.S. involvement in the operation remains unclear.

At the center of this mess was Jamaica’s then-Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, who also represented Tivoli Gardens as a member of Parliament. Golding spent months delaying the extradition request. His party hired a Washington law firm to lobby against it. Golding has maintained that he was acting on principle and that the wiretap evidence used by the U.S. to indict Coke was illegal under Jamaican law. But many people have argued that Coke had influence over Golding and that Jamaica was on the verge of becoming a narco-state. Hardley Lewin, the former head of Jamaica’s military, has suggested that when the extradition request finally went through, Golding’s administration leaked the news to Coke, giving him time to muster his forces.

Golding resigned from office in October, 2011. I made several attempts to reach him while reporting the original story, and did not receive a response. I sent Golding an e-mail when I returned to Jamaica earlier this summer, and was surprised when he agreed to an interview. This is his first public comment on the killings since leaving office. We spoke for about an hour in his living room, over glasses of juice from the Bombay mango trees that shade his home in the hills of Kingston. The interview has been edited for length and clarity, and one question and answer come from a follow-up e-mail.

Do you feel that anything went wrong during the operation to arrest Coke?

Difficult to say. A large number of persons were killed. And it is evident to me that some of those persons that were killed were not themselves gunmen, were not confronting the security forces. How many of the seventy-three [killed] fall in that category, as distinct from those who were engaging the police in armed confrontation … because that happened, too. There are reports from residents with whom I spoke that some of the persons who were killed were murdered in cold-blooded fashion. I visited a house, for example, where the mother lost two sons—you might have been to that house, too. She took me into the room and showed me where they were put to kneel down. So there was enough in terms of what I was told and what I saw to suggest that an in-depth investigation was necessary.

The U.S. government has repeatedly said that this was a Jamaican operation conducted by Jamaican security forces. Is that statement accurate?

I requested that the U.S. authorities provide us with aerial surveillance. What I had in mind at that time were satellite images of what was happening on the ground. I didn’t get into the technical details. I simply asked the U.S. ambassador whether her government would be able to provide some aerial intelligence that would assist the security forces in managing the operation.

Were there U.S. personnel on the ground in Tivoli Gardens during the operation?

No. I was never told that they were there. I have no such knowledge.

What kind of reports were you getting, as Prime Minster, from the ground as this whole thing was under way?

I would get regular reports from the security forces. I would get a daily written brief in terms of what was happening on the ground—what success they were achieving, what difficulties they were encountering.

Do you have a sense of what their rules of engagement were, or what their parameters were going in?

No, that was an operational matter over which, by law, I have no authority or jurisdiction.

But this was a pretty serious and historical operation—

It was. It was.

As Prime Minister, did you involve yourself in the details of it at all?

They [the security forces] are subject to the rules and the law and the constitution, and, therefore, if in carrying out the operation something is done which is contrary to law, which is in violation of human rights, then they are held accountable. We don’t know what will come of the public defender’s inquiry. I’m surprised that it has not been submitted. When that is submitted, he may very well refer a copy of that to the director of public prosecutions, to be tabled in parliament, and we’ll have to see from that stage whether there is a basis from which any criminal charges should be laid. What is clear is that the security forces faced a serious challenge to the authority of the state.

During the planning and unfolding of the Tivoli operation, did you hear anything in your updates from the security forces that could shed some light on these many allegations of extrajudicial killings?

None of the reports or briefings I received from the security forces acknowledged any unlawful [or] extrajudicial behavior. They would always give the assurance that all credible allegations or charges would be promptly and thoroughly investigated.

After months of challenging the legality of the U.S. request to extradite Coke, you abruptly reversed your position. There has been much speculation in Jamaica about what caused you to change your mind. Can you shed any light on your thinking at that time?

I met with the head of security forces on the morning of that Sunday [May 23rd]. They indicated to me that their intelligence told them that there was a significant and massive buildup of armory and armed men in the area—not only in Tivoli but the adjoining area—and that they were muscling up to prevent any attempt by the security forces to enter the area. [The security forces] recommended to me that to ensure that they can effectively restore law and order, a state of emergency was required.

Were you experiencing diplomatic pressure from the U.S. during this time?

Well, nothing unusual. I mean, there was a lot of U.S. pressure in relation to the extradition of Coke.

And you for a time were resisting processing the extradition—

Yeah, there was that. But there was no pressure in relation to the security forces going into Tivoli Gardens to conduct the operation, no specific—

But at one point you changed your position and said that the extradition order would be signed and processed.

Well, that was because the country was in a crisis, the government was in a crisis, and I had to make a decision. I had to decide whether—much as I believed that the process that was used was wrong, that it was a violation of our laws and our constitution, that it was setting a dangerous precedent—I felt the broader interests of the country would not be served by stubbornly pursuing that position.