THE Crawle murder trial is expected to return to the core issues of fact today after six hours of legal wrangling yesterday that delayed the continuation of the testimony by former policeman, Tyrone Brown.

Brown had told the court on Monday that he witnessed police colleagues collect a gun from premises in East Kingston and saw Superintendent Reneto Adams plant that gun at the Crawle murder scene on May 7, 2003.

But before Brown could take the stand again yesterday to continue his testimony, prosecuting lawyers told Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, who is conducting the case, that there was a procedural matter that they wanted to discuss in the absence of the jurors. The legal and procedural issues took up almost the entire day and Wolfe promised to deliver his ruling today.

The judge ordered the press not to report on the submissions.

Adams and five members of the Crime Management Unit (CMU) which he used to head, are on trial for the murder of four persons, including two women at Crawle, the small village in the central Jamaican parish of Clarendon.

At the time of the incident the police claimed while searching for a wanted man that they came under fire from the house in which four persons were killed and that the deaths occurred in that gunfight. Prosecutors alleged that the victims were executed.