Death Squad Trial | Witness says he saw when cop shot Trought
Published:Thursday | May 16, 2019 | 12:00 AMNickoy Wilson/Gleaner Writer
A Crown witness yesterday told the court that he saw when Detective Corporal Kevin Adams fired two shots, hitting his friend Anthony ‘Toby’ Trought, who later died.
The allegations are that Adams and Constable Jerome Whyte murdered Trought in cold blood on February 13, 2013 in front of his 1st Street, Terrier Town home in Clarendon.
On Tuesday, the construction worker told the court that police invaded his home on the day in question in search of Trought.
He said the police, who subsequently left, returned to the community after Trought and a man identified as ‘Cha Cha’ returned to the area.
The witness, who was deported to Jamaica in 2007, said that the police, travelling in a two vehicles, sped into the community and confronted Trought.
As he continued giving testimony in the trial of Adams and Whyte at the downtown Kingston-based Home Circuit Court, the witness told the court that after police approached Trought and ‘Cha Cha’, the two men exited the vehicle in which they were travelling with their hands up.
He said shortly after, both men lowered their hands and conversed with the policemen.
The shooting
According to the witness, both Adams and Whyte moved towards where the two vehicles were parked, joining four other policemen who were dressed in blue denim.
The witness said he then saw Adams and Whyte, both holding guns, moving towards Trought and ‘Cha Cha.’
He said Adams raised his right shoulder and fired the two shots.
He said ‘Cha Cha’ ran off, coming in his direction, while he decided to go in the direction of the shooting.
A neighbour, the witness said, then shouted out to him and he stopped.
He said he observed two of the cops go next to Trought’s body and fired shots in the direction of a cemetery behind the deceased’s house.
The policemen, he said, then held Trought by the hands and feet and placed him in one of the vehicles.
But before they left, the witness said Adams issued a threat.
“If we come back around, all of you gon’ disappear,” the witness quoted Adams as saying.
The witness said the police then left.
Previous convictions
But under cross-examination by attorney-at-law Queen’s Counsel Valerie Neita-Robertson, it was suggested that the witness was involved in the guns-for-drugs trade.
“No, Ma’am,” the witness said.
She also suggested that the witness had been to Haiti on several occasions.
However, the witness replied, “Never been to Haiti, Ma’am.”
The witness admitted in open court that he was convicted of several marijuana-related offences in the United States, Guyana and Jamaica from 2001 to 2017.
The attorney also suggested that the witness was convicted in 2017 in relation to a six-tonne marijuana find, which he admitted to.
It was also suggested that he was on the witness protection programme.
“I did what I did off my own, Ma’am,” the witness responded.
The trial is scheduled to continue today.