AN 18 year-old cousin of one of the seven youth killed by the police in Braeton last March told the coroner’s inquest into the killings Thursday that a policeman who came into the room where he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, kicked him in his face and kept his foot there for 10 minutes.

But Oswest Senior-Smith, counsel for the police, suggested that the witness, Aruga Lamonth, was lying, saying that there were several discrepancies between Lamonth’s written statement to the police and the evidence he gave at the inquest.

According to Senior-Smith, Lamonth testified in court that the policeman placed his foot in his face for 10 minutes, but in the written statement he said that the policeman placed “his foot in my face for 60 seconds”.

Lamonth had also told Senior-Smith that the police beat him to give a false statement. But the attorney asked him why, with his attorney Michael Lorne present, he had signed a statement that made no mention of the beating.

Senior-Smith also asked Lamonth why he had not told Janet Scotland, the Director of Public Prosecutions’ lead attorney, that he was beaten by the police with a broad board.

Lamonth replied: “She never reach at that point.”

Senior-Smith: “Nothing like that, you are making it up.”

Lamonth: “No sir.”

He said that he told his lawyer, Lorne, that he was beaten.

Later, when Lamonth was shown the written statement with his signature, he said that he believed that the police “maybe can change the signature”. He also told the inquest that the signature on one of the pages appeared to have been erased and rewritten differently.

Lamonth had testified that he and his cousin, Conroy Robinson (one of the seven youth killed by the police), who shared a bedroom with Robinson’s mother, Veronica, were taken from Cassava Piece in Kingston in a convoy of police vehicles to his grandmother’s house at West Cumberland, Portmore, St Catherine.

He said that while they were at West Cumberland, he heard someone bawling.

“I heard crying coming from near the football field where a jeep was parked. The person crying was Conroy,” he said.

Lamonth testified that when the police got to Braeton, the jeep was parked in the car park and he did not have a view of 1088 Fifth Seal Way, the house where the youth were killed.

He said he saw cops running down the pathway and heard a voice call out “Chris”.

“I see them run down the pathway. I heard a loud voice calling Chris but I never recognise the voice that time. I see someone come up from down the pathway with a scandal bag over his face and a policeman leading him like a blind person. Him put him into a car in front of me then I hear lots of shots start firing from down the direction of down in the pathway. Then I hear somebody bawling out ‘murder, Mr Corpie help’.”

Lamonth, who said it was dark during the police operation, testified that at daybreak when the sun shone on the heavily tinted car in which the police had placed the blindfolded man, he realised that he knew the man.

The witness also testified that he heard one voice at first cry out from the direction of the house, then two or three other voices. He said that after the voices fell silent, he still heard gunshots being fired.

Lamonth told the inquest that after he heard the voices saying “murder”, he saw a policeman running back up the pathway.

“Him start call and gather up the policemen and said ‘oonu come down here. Oonu don’t know say a have a man here fe lick down’.”

Lamonth said that about 10 to 20 cops ran down into the pathway and he heard shots being fired again. He said he also heard a policeman radioing for a helicopter.

He said that nearing daybreak he saw a policeman “bringing up three guns in his hand and put them down on a jeep”.

Two cameramen, he said, took video pictures of the scene. After the second video cameraman had finished, Lamonth testified that he saw Deputy Superintendent Cornwall “Bigga” Ford drive up.

“Bigga Ford came out of the jeep, put two gloves on his hands and turn down towards the pathway,” Lamonth said. “After Bigga Ford turned down the pathway, I hear two gunshots fire, then three jeeps reverse down in the pathway. After about five minutes, the jeep them come back up and drive away.”

He said that when the sun came up he also noticed that his cousin, Conroy, was sitting in a vehicle parked about 30 feet from where he was.

Lamonth said that after the operation, the convoy of vehicles stopped on the side of a highway. He said that he was left in a jeep parked in the sun for one-and-a-half hours while the policemen “drank”.

“When they came back, I beg one a piece of newspaper to wipe the sweat off me,” he testified.