KINGSTON, Feb 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Jamaica should repeal its colonial-era gay sex ban, the top rights body of the Americas said on Wednesday, in a symbolic landmark ruling on LGBT+ rights in the Caribbean. Two Jamaicans who initiated the case in 2011 – after they were attacked by homophobic gangs and sought asylum overseas – said the 1864 ban on the “abominable crime of buggery” and “gross indecency” legitimised violence against LGBT+ people. “I’m overwhelmed with joy,” Gareth Henry, one of the claimants who is now a refugee in Canada, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Gays and lesbians continue to be killed and tortured because they are deemed to be different,” he said, describing how he was beaten by the police in front of a mob.