Keith Clarke shot at least 10 times in the back, says expert witness

Twenty of the 25 gunshot wounds received by businessman Keith Clarke, during the May 2010 security forces operation at his home in St Andrew, were fatal.

Of the 13 injuries detailed by an expert witness so far, 10 of them were from gunshots to the back, one shot to the left thigh, one to the right leg and another to the left chest.

Dr Dinesh Rao, former chief forensic pathologist in the Legal Medicine Unit at the Ministry of National Security, made the disclosure yesterday during his testimony via video link from overseas.

The 64-year-old accountant was shot multiple times inside his master bedroom at his Kirkland Close home on May 27 during a police-military operation to apprehend then-fugitive drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Defendants lance corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley and Private Arnold Henry are being tried for murder before Justice Dale Palmer.

Rao, who told the ongoing jury trial that he has conducted over 6,000 postmortems, outlined some of the injuries that he observed on Clarke’s body during the postmortem exercise at a funeral home in St Catherine.

Meanwhile, Rao’s testimony was cut short by connectivity issues and he is set to resume his testimony today.

Clarke’s widow and daughter previously testified that they witnessed Clarke being shot while climbing down from the closet with his back turned to the soldiers. Clarke’s daughter, Brittany, had insisted that he was shot at the window while coming down.

Both relatives had also insisted that they were home alone with Clarke when they heard sounds and thought criminals were breaking in on them.

However, a former government forensic analyst testified that Keith Clarke was shot while inside the closet in the master bedroom, contradicting the testimony from his widow and daughter that it occurred while he was climbing down from atop the closet.

The expert witness also ruled out the idea that the witness was shot at the window. She testified that she did not see any blood spatter on the window or the walls around the window. She also could not recall seeing a curtain and whether it had blood marks but was certain that there were no bloodstains or spatter on the window.

The court was told that it was likely that Clarke was shot while positioned at the left side of the closet based on the blood spatter captured in a photograph she was shown.

Meanwhile, the last witness, Brigadier Mahatma Williams, who commanded the unit linked to the death of the businessman, previously, testified that based on an aerial video that captured the shooting on the grounds of the premises, he believed that the soldiers “acted in good faith”.

The aerial video, which was disclosed last month by the prosecution, was recorded by the JDF from a helicopter.

Williams testified that after the incident, he and others reviewed the video, which showed that the soldiers came under attack from insurgents inside the Clarkes’ premises and that the soldiers had followed the requisite drills.

Williams also told the court that the JDF had relied on intelligence, which led them to the premises and that his team came under attack while heading to Kirkland Close.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com