News
Key witness comes under pressure at Kartel trial
BY KARYL WALKER Editor — Crime/Court Desk [email protected]
Friday, November 29, 2013
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THE defence yesterday painted the prosecution’s star witness as untruthful during the murder trial of Vybz Kartel and four other men in the Supreme Court, downtown Kingston.
Kartel, Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, André St John, Kahira Jones, and Shane Williams are jointly charged with the August 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams.
Attorney Pierre Rodgers, who represents Jones, asked the witness during cross-examination if he had handled an illegal firearm on the evening in August 2011 when Williams was allegedly murdered at a house in Havendale, St Andrew, owned by Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer.
“Did you have a firearm that day?” Rodgers asked.
“No sir,” the witness answered.
“At no point did you have a firearm with you?” Rodgers asked again.
“No sir,” the witness replied.
‘Have you told anyone that you had a firearm on the night of the 16th of August 2011?” the attorney asked.
Rodgers then produced a statement the witness gave to the police and asked the witness to read a selected sentence.
After the witness finished reading, Rodgers then read the sentence aloud.
“Bandit take out a gun from the back of his waist and give it to me,” he said.
The witness then admitted that he did in fact handle the gun and had told the police so.
“Someone handed it to me,” the witness said.
He also testified that he was not afraid when three carloads of police came to pick him up at a location in St Thomas. “I was not afraid because I didn’t do anything,” he said.
After persistent questioning by Rodgers, he relented and admitted that when he was being questioned by the police it was “kinda scary”.
Miguel Lorne, the attorney representing Campbell, also drilled the witness about his testimony that a ticket was bought for him at the Norman Manley International Airport for him to travel to Guyana to avoid being questioned about
Williams’ disappearance.
The witness insisted that a woman, identified as ‘Sheba’, bought the ticket despite Lorne reading from his statement to the police that stated that the ticket was not bought after the travelling party had missed
the flight.
“You tell the police the ticket was not bought, you tell the court that the ticket was bought; which one is the truth?” Lorne asked.
“The ticket was bought,” the witness answered.
“That one is the truth? So you tell the police a lie?” Lorne
shot back.
“No sir,” the witness answered.
You have lied to us on several occasions,” Lorne said.
Lorne also attempted to pour cold water on the witness’ claim that Campbell and Kartel forced open the door to room in which he had fled while Williams was being attacked.
The witness also denied Lorne’s suggestion that he was threatened with murder charges by the police if he did not co-operate and give them the statement that led to Kartel and the four other men being arrested and charged with murder.
He also denied that he had written a letter to the Office of the Public Defender complaining that he did not want to go court because he had seen Williams after the night of the alleged attack.
there is a lady in twitter that do the live update from court room a day time thats where u should get the news of from tvj . the gleaner and observer not doing a good job . yesturday them catch him in a 3 lies . them taking him apart bit by bit
not really, there may be an issue with the statement he is using…………police go a one a di lawyer dem house lastnight so we will see
is he lying? or both Kartel lawyer and the defence trying to prove him as a liar….when someone asks another person a question if they leave off a word or ponder about something the statement because another …for eg……di ticket buy fi yu go guyana? NO ….did he make the statement about the first trip or second trip ……..then this is the issue when he answered the question …..The ticket buy? No because I did miss the flight? What was he answering no to the first or the second time so I dont think he was lying …they are trying to make a liar for their own defense
I say fukkry dem a try pon de yute, bout if you had a gun on such day……..a mean if was given a bag with 12 mangoes to hold for someone or just to look at the mangoes did I HAVE a dozen mangoes????? Hope the jury people dem have sense to claat.
yes they are intelligent and he is dumb so they twist around ….
I fig out the password..morning again.
morning i had to approve the first comment and mi jus a come back :kiss
This case still a gwan when a d verdict met???
I think the witness misunderstood when the attorney asked him if he had a gun that day. I think he thought they were asking him if he was carrying a gun at the time, as in he personally was walking around with the gun. I don’t get the full since it’s just the one sentence that was read so I don’t know if this Bandit person just handed him the gun to hold for a few minutes or what but me nuh know. This alone what I’m reading here would make it seem as if he just really wasn’t carrying around a gun on his person but didn’t understand that the attorney meant him handling a gun period. Mek me go finish read up the other posts