The way is now clear for the convicted killers of leftist Grenada Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop to get one of their matters heard by the British Privy Council in London, England..

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday gave the Bernard Coard Group the go ahead to appeal against an earlier decision of the court itself. Coard and sixteen others were convicted in 1986 by a high court established by their own 1979-83 Grenada Revolution for the murder of Bishop and several Cabinet colleagues in a bitter power struggle.

At issue is a motion filed by Coard and his lawyers (Keith Scotland of Trinidad and Grenadians Ruggles Ferguson and Cajeton Hood) challenging the stiff prison sentences handed down on them during their high court trial.

In 2004, high court judge Justice Kenneth Benjamin ruled in favour of the murder convicts that their death sentences were unconstitutional and ordered that they be brought back to him for proper sentencing.

The State appealed against that ruling and the Court of Appeal upheld the State's objection to the re-sentencing of the Coard Gang. The Bishop Killers sought leave before the said Court of Appeal to take the matter to the Privy Council for determination.

The State's lawyer, former Trinidad and Tobago Attorney-General, Karl Hudson-Phillip made mention of the court's own decision in an earlier matter to decline "to exercise jurisdiction to hear or rehear or determine or redetermine" matters pertaining to the original high court trial and appeal proceedings of Coard and company under the previous Grenada court system.

In handing down the ruling Wednesday, the Court of Appeal did not favour the contentions of Hudson-Phillip. The court said: "With great respect to learned Queen's Counsel (Hudson Phillip), the essential difference between this case and the Mitchell case (1986, 1988 and 1991) is that the issues sought to be adjudicated in this case flow from proceedings filed in the Supreme Court of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States of which this court forms part, and do not, procedurally, derive from the former Supreme Court of Grenada.

"In the circumstances, and for reasons advanced above, leave is granted to the Applicants to appeal to her Majesty in Council on condition that within 90 days of this date the Applicants do deposit with the Registrar of the Supreme Court the sum of 500 Pounds Sterling or its EC dollar equivalent as security for the prosecution of the appeal and do within the same 90 days make arrangements for the preparation and dispatch of the Record of appeal to the Registrar of the Privy Council", said the Court of appeal