Jamaican 'Rambo' seeking to be island police chief

A feared ex-police commander known as "Rambo," who led a commando-style squad accused of multiple killings across Jamaica, is seeking to become the violence-wracked island's top law enforcement officer, police said Sunday.

Ex-commander Reneto Adams, who was considered effective but ruthless as the head of the elite anti-crime unit before retiring last year, applied to be named as the Caribbean nation's next police chief, spokesman Karl Angell said.

Adams did not return calls seeking comment. Owen Ellington, named acting chief last week after Hardley Lewin resigned, could not immediately be reached either.

The Crime Management Unit that Adams headed was created in 2000 to combat rising violence in the capital, Kingston _ and was linked to at least 40 extrajudicial killings before disbanding in 2003, according to the rights group Families Against State Terrorism.

Adams was relegated to desk duties in 2004 because of a raid the previous year in which four people were killed, although he and five squad members were later cleared.

The day after his acquittal, he released a dancehall song called "Serve and Protect" in which he warned criminals of his return to the streets.

Adams left the force after 41 years when he turned 59, the mandatory retirement age for Jamaican officers. There is no such limit for police chiefs.

Something of a celebrity, Adams rarely appears in public without his signature aviator sunglasses. Jamaicans continue to ask for his autograph even in retirement, and local musicians have compared him in song to Rambo, Saddam Hussein and Dirty Harry. He appeared in a soap opera.

Jamaica is battling one of the world's highest murder rates. Prime Minister Bruce Golding recently said the island of 3 million people may this year surpass 2005's record of 1,674 killings.