IT took five hours of haggling yesterday for the prosecution and the defence to agree on the 12 jurors who will adjudicate in the Braeton murder case.

And in the end they were told that the Crown will prove that the seven youth killed by the police in the Portmore community more than three years had surrendered to the cops before being cold-bloodedly cut down in a hail of bullets.

“The Crown is alleging that at the material time when the men met their deaths, the police officers who killed them were not acting in self-defence because the men in the pathway would have been disarmed of the guns they had,” the lead prosecution attorney, Paula Llewellyn, told the court.

“The Crown is saying if these men had surrendered in the custody of the accused then it is murder.”

Six policemen – Sergeant Raymond Miller; Corporal Linroy Edwards; and constables Leighton Bucknor; Wayne Constantine; Miguel Ebanks; and Devon Bernard – are on trial for the deaths of:

. Curtis Smith, 20;

. Andrew Virgo, 20;

. Tamoyo Wilson, 20;

. Lancebert Clark,19;

. Dayne White, 19;

. Christopher Grant, 17; and

. Regan Beckford, 15.

The policemen were members of the now disbanded task force – the Crime Management Unit – that was led by the controversial and colourful cop, Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams.

Adams and six of his men face separate, unrelated murder charges for the killing of four persons in what was alleged to have been a shoot-out, but which others claim were executions.

But in the case which began in the Supreme Court in Kingston yesterday, both the prosecution, in a process they started at 10:15 in the morning, rejected 66 prospective jurors, including a handful who said they did not want to serve.

By three o’clock in the afternoon, they had settled on only 11 of the 12 required. It was then that the presiding judge Donald McIntosh, faced with a vastly diminished pool from which to choose, adjourned the session briefly and asked both sides if they could settle on someone who may have earlier been rejected.

After consultation, the prosecution and defence agreed on the 12th and final juror, paving the way for Llewellyn, the senior deputy director of public prosecutions, to begin to outline her case.

The events, according to the prosecutor, began to unfold in the pre-dawn of March 14, 2001, when 60 policemen from the CMU, the Anti-Crime Task Force, and the St Catherine North police division left the Duhaney Park Police Station.

They were led by Adams and armed with a warrant for the arrest of Christopher Grant and Courtney Robinson, both suspected of killing two people, including a policeman, at the Above Rocks Police Station in St Catherine.

From Duhaney Park, the police party went to Cassava Piece, St Andrew, and searched a premises from where they took Conroy Robinson and Ambrose Lamont. From Cassava Piece, the next stop was West Cumberland, in Portmore, St Catherine, where Everton Robinson was taken into custody.

Everton Robinson, according to the prosecution outline of events, directed the police to a house at 1088 Seal Way in Braeton. That was now between 4:30 am and 4:45 am.

According to Llewelyn, Adams and 15 other policemen, including the six accused of murder, took up position at 1088 Seal Way. The house was dark.

At about 6:15 am, she suggested, the seven would have already been in police custody when gunshots were heard inside the house. When the shooting stopped, the seven youths were dead.

Earlier, the prosecution claimed, there had been shouts from the house calling on neighbours for help.

The Braeton killings sparked outrage in Jamaica and local human rights group, with the support of Amnesty International, campaigned for charges to be brought against the policemen.

A coroners jury, however, in October 2003 returned a split verdict on whether anyone was criminally responsible for the killings, but the Director of Public Prosecutions later ordered the arrest and charge of the seven for murder.

The cops attempted, but failed, to have their case traversed from Kingston to either the parish of St Elizabeth or Manchester, contending that they would not get a fair trial in the capital.

Yesterday’s tedious jury selection and a ruling by the judge that the men, who are on bail, should not drive to court but should be met at the police Mobile Reserve headquarters, underlined the emotion generated by the case.

Several members of the constabulary, including senior officers, turned up in court yesterday, some clearly to provide moral support to the accused men.

But Llewellyn warned jurors, who had earlier been asked to declare their hands if they were associated with the case, not to be led by evidence and not what was heard outside the court.

“You should not say because seven people were killed that you must find the accused men guilty or sympathise with them (the accused) because they are policemen,” she said.