THREE of the youth who were shot dead by police at a house in Braeton last year March were identified by two witnesses as the persons who robbed a bar in Old Braeton and killed a school principal the night before they died, a police constable told Monday’s sitting of the coroner’s inquest into the police killings.

According to Constable Marlon Brandon, after the seven youth were killed and taken to the Spanish Town Hospital, he was instructed by Deputy Superintendent Cornwall Ford to escort to the hospital, two witnesses to the robbery at the bar and murder of Hartlands Primary School principal, Keith Morris.

Constable Brandon, who said he was accompanied by a Detective Constable Blake, told the inquest that six of the bodies were covered with sheets on two trolleys in the emergency area of the hospital, while the body of the seventh youth was on a piece of board on the floor near the two trolleys.

The seven youth were killed on the morning of March 14, 2001 during an alleged shoot-out with cops at 1080 Fifth Seal Way.

The police have claimed that among the seven were Morris’ killers, as well as the killers of a policeman who was shot dead a few weeks before at the Above Rocks Police Station.

Morris was chased and shot in his back when the bar where he was playing dominoes with friends was held up and robbed.

On Monday, Constable Brandon, during the evidence in chief led by Herbie McKenzie, assistant deputy director of public prosecutions, said that the witnesses — a man and a woman — identified Andre Virgo, Christopher Grant and Reagon Beckford as the three who committed the robbery and murder on March 13.

Constable Brandon said that after getting permission from the doctor on duty to view the bodies, he first took the woman to identify the three youth. The woman, who he said was nervous, identified one of them on the first trolley and two on the second trolley as the persons who had robbed her on the night of March 13.

She identified one of the youth on the second trolley as the person who jumped over the counter at the bar and grabbed cigarettes and bottles of Guinness stout.

The male witness, who also identified the same three youth, was more positive and forthright in his identification, the constable testified.

This is the man who had the gun officer. I am sure,” Brandon quoted the witness as saying.

He said that after the identification was completed, the two witnesses were taken to the “Hundred Man” Police Station in Portmore.

During cross-examination, attorney Richard Rowe, representing the estate of Tamayo Wilson, one of the seven youth killed, asked Brandon where were the two witnesses taken to identify the three youth.

Brandon said that the witnesses identified them at the Spanish Town Hospital, but Rowe pointed out that in their written statements they said that the identification took place at the Spanish Town Funeral Home.

Later in the hearing, McKenzie asked the coroner, Lorna Errar-Gayle, to bar the media and hold in-camera hearings when the witnesses to Morris’ murder testify.