INDECOM witness struggles to make out info copied from JDF ammunition book

A former investigator in the Keith Clarke murder case, who had certified photocopied pages from the Jamaica Defence Force’s (JDF) ammunition book, yesterday struggled to figure out some of the data the document had captured.

Taneish Wisdom, director of evaluation of standards at the Independent Commission of Investigations, yesterday, was quizzed by prosecutor Lotoya Bernard about the contents of the document after Justice Dale Palmer ruled that the document be admitted into evidence following objections from the defence.

“I can’t read this part,” and, “I am not sure what I am looking at. It just looks like markings,” the witness repeatedly said when asked to provide the information on the document.

At one point, the prosecutor asked for permission for Wisdom to use a magnifying glass, but even that did not help her vision.

Wisdom insisted that the document was still “blurry”.

However, under cross-examination from Peter Champagnie. King’s Counsel, when asked why she had certified the document even though she could not make out some of the information, she said, “Thirteen years ago, my sight was better.”

The former senior investigator was recalled to the witness stand to give evidence about the photocopied entries, along with a cover letter, which she said she had received from Captain Chester Crooks.

Wisdom had also testified that she had been given the task to certify the documents, and as a result, went to the JDF’s legal office on June 30, 2011, and cross-checked the information provided against the ammunition book.

The witness further stated that after checking and affirming that the information was the same, she affixed her signature and date to the document.

In answering Bernard’s question as to what was captured in the different columns on the document, Wisdom, after being shown the document, reported that there were headings titled name, rank, date in, issued by, and returned by.

She testified that the names ‘Tingling G’, ‘Buckley O’, and ‘Henry A’ were seen in the columns under ‘name’.

She was also able to see the information that had been entered under the headings ‘date in’, ‘rank’, and ‘regiment number’ but could not make out much else.

Wisdom admitted that in many instances, she could see markings but didn’t know what they were.

Bernard, during her efforts to ascertain the information, resorted to asking Wisdom what the markings appeared to be, but the defence objected, saying she was inviting speculation from the witness, which was accepted by the judge.

Interviewed former JDF officer

In the meantime, during cross-examination from John-Mark Reid, Wisdom, when asked if she had interviewed Albert Spencer, said she could not remember. Spencer is the former JDF officer who was in charge of the ammunition and weapon records and was subpoenaed to appear as a witness for the Crown but cannot be found.

However, Wisdom, after she was shown a document, admitted that she was present at the interview but could not recall that copies of the pages from the ammunition book had been shown to Spencer.

She further disagreed with a suggestion from Reid that Spencer had been shown copies of the document in the interview that took place on April 27, 2011.

She also could not recall whether numbers were written beside the names of the soldiers in the photocopied document.

The witness was also questioned about the source of the photocopied document and its current whereabouts and indicated that she did not know where it came from and where it is today.

Pressed by Reid on whether the document was the same one that she had certified, Wisdom insisted that she was given the one that she took to camp to be certified by Crooks.

Additionally, Wisdom, under cross-examination from Champagnie, disclosed that there were five soldiers’ names in the document.

She also agreed that she had given a statement in relation to the document last week Tuesday and that she had not mentioned going to the JDF to certify the photocopied document in any of her statements.

Lance Corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley and Private Arnold Henry are on trial for Clarke’s murder.

The 64-year-old accountant was shot 25 times inside his master bedroom at his Kirkland Close, St Andrew, home on May 27, 2010, during a police-military operation to apprehend then-fugitive drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

The trial will resume today, with Wisdom being cross-examined by defence attorney Linton Gordon.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com