THE trial of the three policemen charged with the murder of two men who were abducted from a Kingston plaza in 2004 started in the Home Circuit Court yesterday with the prosecution promising evidence that it said will show the men's guilt.

Assistant Superintendent Victor Barrett and corporals Paul Edwards and Louis Lynch are on trial for the murder of Kemar Walters and Oliver Duncan.

Both men were abducted from The Washington Plaza -- along the Washington Boulevard, close by Patrick City in St Andrew — on December 23, 2004. Their bodies have not been found. The men were charged five years later in 2009.

Yesterday, Senior Prosecutor Dirk Harrison told jurors during his opening address that evidence will be led that there was a common plot among the police officers to kill the men. Harrison said that Barrett, who headed the police's Gang Intelligence Unit, played an important role in covering up the crime.

"A grand cover up," Harrison told jurors.

The prosecution, in an attempt to help establish that the men are dead, called the mother of both men, Walters' granduncle and the mother of Duncan's two children. They gave evidence that they have not heard from Duncan and Walters or seen them after December 23, 2004.

The mother of Duncan's children testified under cross-examination by attorney Valerie Neita-Robertson that on the day Duncan went missing, he was in an argument with a man named Paul who had threatened him.

The witness said that five days later Paul returned to her home and told her that Duncan was dead.

The trial continues.

The other defence lawyers in the case are Queen's Counsel K Churchill Neita, Oswest Senior Smith and Deborah Martin.