YESTERDAY’S sitting of the coroner’s inquest into the Braeton killings was aborted after members of the fledgling group Families Against State Terrorism (FAST) were accused of distributing leaflets with information about the killings in the precincts of the Spanish Town Court.

Immediately after the adjournment, the coroner, Lorna Errar-Gayle, summoned all the attorneys to a private meeting at the end of which the attorneys told the Observer that they could not disclose what was discussed.

CVM journalist Michael Pryce was slated to continue giving evidence yesterday, but immediately upon the coroner entering the court, Carrington Mahoney, the deputy director of public prosecutions, informed her, with the jury present, of his concerns about the fliers.

Mahoney told the coroner that he noticed the fliers about the Braeton Seven in the precincts of the court. He said that “almost everybody has one” and much of the flier “misinformed or misquoted the evidence”. It was a blatant attempt to influence or to intimidate the court before the jury had heard all the evidence, he argued.

The FAST flier, which has pictures of the seven youth killed by the police in March last year, states the following:

(1) None of the youths had a criminal record.

(2) Neighbours heard the youths begging for their lives.

(3) Injuries on some of the youths’ bodies show they were beaten before they were killed.

(4) The seven youths received a total of 46 gunshot wounds, 16 to the head and face. (Reagon) Beckford alone got 12 gunshot wounds.

(5) No nearby house or wall shows any signs that the youths fired at the police.

The police have maintained that the youth engaged them in a firefight, but neighbours and relatives of the seven have denied this, saying that the youngsters were murdered.

Mahoney said that he did not know if the distribution of the fliers was an attempt to create excitement and news. He pointed out that Ivor Frank, the attorney observing the inquest on behalf of Amnesty International, was present and that “the next thing you know it could be on the BBC”.

He said that the DPP was not being given a proper opportunity to air the evidence at the inquest and it was ironic that the same FAST that was advocating justice was interfering with justice.

Roger Davis, representing the estate of Andre Virgo, one of the deceased, said that Mahoney’s remarks were a “tempest full of sound and fury”. He said that Mahoney had made certain innuendos about the Amnesty International observer and that Frank “is just now being made aware of this”. He said, too, that aspersions were being cast about Amnesty in front of the jury.

Veronica Robinson, a member of FAST who was in court, and who was asked for an explanation by Errar-Gayle, denied that she distributed the fliers in the vicinity of the court. She said that they were distributed at a nearby school.

According to Robinson, Mahoney had seen her with the fliers and had asked for one. Other persons had also seen the leaflets and asked for copies.

DeLeonard Wilson, another member of FAST, also denied distributing the leaflet near the court, while Yvonne Sobers, organiser and leader of FAST, told the coroner that she had been involved in the production of the leaflet which had been around since early January, but had not distributed any of them yesterday morning.

She said that a school a short distance away from the court had asked FAST for whatever human rights brochures they had and “we considered this leaflet one of them. I knew they were to be taken to the school but I was inside when they were being given out,” she said.

Errar-Gayle reminded the FAST members that they were there when she told persons not to talk to or seek to influence persons while the case is going on.

She then asked the jury if they had seen the leaflet. They said no.

The coroner told the jury to return on Monday and admonished them: “You heard Mr Pryce’s evidence that persons rush to judgement. I don’t wish you to rush to judgement.”

She said that they should not worry about those persons Mr Pryce described as not having the facts and noted that some persons studied law by correspondence course and “think that they know more than us who have studied for five years”.