DUPPY OR GUNMAN?
Lawyers question who witness actually saw at crime scenes while clients were behind bars
Published:Tuesday | July 26, 2022 | 12:09 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
Defence lawyers on Monday ripped into the credibility of one of the prosecution’s main witnesses in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial for placing their clients at various locations, including murder scenes, while they were behind bars.
Drawing on the Ernie Smith hit song Duppy Gunman, attorney-at-law Shadae Bailey questioned whether the self-confessed former gang member was referring to a duppy or a gunman instead of her client as she joined her colleagues in calling for his evidence to be disregarded.
Evidence presented from the Spanish Town Police Station and Horizon Adult Remand Centre showed that at least four of the 28 defendants were in the State’s custody when they were fingered as being physically involved in the murder incidents and conspiracy.
The four – defendants Tareek James, Kalifa Williams, Pete Miller and Donovan Richards – had requested records from the two entities to bolster their defence.
On Monday, their lawyers argued that the witness could not be believed and that his evidence has weakened the Crown’s case. They called on the judge to find their clients not guilty.
Bailey, who is representing Miller, pointed out that there was no way that the witness could have seen her client in March 2017 in Rivoli in St Catherine, where two men from Denham Town were reportedly killed by members of the gang. She also contended that the prosecution witness also could have not heard him saying that “the man dem fi dead” as he was in prison.
“I am yet to see who [the witness] saw on that fateful night, but it can’t be my client. It must be a duppy or a gunman,” she said.
The attorney also highlighted that the witness had also placed her client at a party for the reputed leader, Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan, in May 2017, when he was, in fact, behind bars.
“It’s clear that the credibility of the witness is obliterated. It shows that he cannot be believed,” she added.
James’ lawyer, Esther Reid, similarly argued that it would have been impossible for her client to have adorned himself in a school uniform to shoot and kill a bus driver at the Spanish Town bus park in November 2017, as he, too, had been imprisoned, as confirmed by the records.
She further pointed out that although the second prosecution witness had corroborated the first witness’s account, that amounts to nothing as he had indicated that he was not at the scene at the time of the shooting.
Kameisha Mittoo, who is representing Richards, noted that the witness had identified her client as being among gangsters who collected extortion monies, while claiming that he had seen him in 2018.
She noted that her client had been in prison from September 2017 and was released briefly in June 2019 before being rearrested.
She argued that the Crown has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Richards was a member of the gang as it only relied on the witness’ assertion that he collected extortion monies, which has not been proven.
Williams’ counsel, Abina Morris, contended that a meeting the witness had testified that he had attended with Bryan, an ex-gangster and her client before he went to prison had not taken place.
Morris said the prosecution has not provided any evidence to show that her client knew that the gang existed, had participated or benefited from its alleged activities, and asked that he be acquitted.
Reid, in a similar argument, said that the Crown had not provided any ballistic evidence to link her client to the double murder arson at New Nursery, St Catherine, in 2017, where it is alleged that he had killed a female with a .45 pistol, which Bryan had also used to kill the woman’s partner.
Reid also argued that although the police had alleged that they had later seized a .45 pistol from her client, no connection was established linking it to any of the murders for which he was charged.
The lawyers will continue making closing arguments today.