Former MP Russell Hammond dies

Russell Hammond, a former MP for the constituency of Westmoreland Central, and a prominent businessman in that parish, died on Friday night at the University Hospital of the West Indies. 

Mr Hammond's stint in Parliament, as a member of the governing Jamaica Labour Party, came during the 1980s.

In 1995 he became a founding member of the National Democratic Movement, founded by Bruce Golding. He contested the 1997 election on that party's ticket, but like all the other candidates for the NDM, lost his bid to return to Parliament.

In later years he mostly focused on his pastry business and community engagements.