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Uchence Wilson Gang Trial | Defence attorneys seek to discredit witnesses in no-case submissions

Published:Wednesday | July 3, 2019 | 12:00 AMNickoy Wilson/Gleaner Writer

Defence attorneys yesterday continued to make no-case submissions, asserting that the evidence against their clients is weak. They insisted that the witnesses who testified were not at the alleged robberies and, therefore, their testimonies were unreliable.

As the trial for reputed gang leader Uchence Wilson and his alleged 21 cronies continued at the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston yesterday, attorney-at-law Peter Champagnie said that although the Crown’s first witness identified his client, Detective Corporal Lloyd Knight, on an identification parade, the said witness failed to identify him in court.

By virtue of this, Champagnie said, the claim by the witness that he saw Knight at the Ackee Village near Three Miles in the Corporate Area was useless.

He also said that the testimony of the second Crown witness, who claims to be a former gang member, is of no evidential value as he testified that he had never seen or met Knight.

The prominent attorney also asserted that the cellular phone data tendered into evidence does not reveal anything incriminating against his client.

Meanwhile, attorney-at-law Alexander Shaw, who is representing Dane Edwards, asserted that the Crown’s first witness identified his client as the shooter in the gang, but failed to describe any occasion on which this was demonstrated.

He also sought to question the credibility of the first witness, who placed the second witness at the scene of the robbery. However, when the second witness took the stand later in the trial, he denied being there.

Shaw also asserted that the witness did not include Edwards in his statement to police in relation to the robbery of scammers, and when asked in court, he could not give a reason for the omission.

No-case submissions are scheduled to continue tomorrow.