THE defence yesterday painted the prosecution’s star witness as untruthful during the murder trial of Vybz Kartel and four other men in the Supreme Court, downtown Kingston.

Kartel, Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, André St John, Kahira Jones, and Shane Williams are jointly charged with the August 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams.

Attorney Pierre Rodgers, who represents Jones, asked the witness during cross-examination if he had handled an illegal firearm on the evening in August 2011 when Williams was allegedly murdered at a house in Havendale, St Andrew, owned by Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer.

“Did you have a firearm that day?” Rodgers asked.

“No sir,” the witness answered.

“At no point did you have a firearm with you?” Rodgers asked again.

“No sir,” the witness replied.

‘Have you told anyone that you had a firearm on the night of the 16th of August 2011?” the attorney asked.

Rodgers then produced a statement the witness gave to the police and asked the witness to read a selected sentence.

After the witness finished reading, Rodgers then read the sentence aloud.

“Bandit take out a gun from the back of his waist and give it to me,” he said.

The witness then admitted that he did in fact handle the gun and had told the police so.

“Someone handed it to me,” the witness said.

He also testified that he was not afraid when three carloads of police came to pick him up at a location in St Thomas. “I was not afraid because I didn’t do anything,” he said.

After persistent questioning by Rodgers, he relented and admitted that when he was being questioned by the police it was “kinda scary”.

Miguel Lorne, the attorney representing Campbell, also drilled the witness about his testimony that a ticket was bought for him at the Norman Manley International Airport for him to travel to Guyana to avoid being questioned about

Williams’ disappearance.

The witness insisted that a woman, identified as ‘Sheba’, bought the ticket despite Lorne reading from his statement to the police that stated that the ticket was not bought after the travelling party had missed

the flight.

“You tell the police the ticket was not bought, you tell the court that the ticket was bought; which one is the truth?” Lorne asked.

“The ticket was bought,” the witness answered.

“That one is the truth? So you tell the police a lie?” Lorne

shot back.

“No sir,” the witness answered.

You have lied to us on several occasions,” Lorne said.

Lorne also attempted to pour cold water on the witness’ claim that Campbell and Kartel forced open the door to room in which he had fled while Williams was being attacked.

The witness also denied Lorne’s suggestion that he was threatened with murder charges by the police if he did not co-operate and give them the statement that led to Kartel and the four other men being arrested and charged with murder.

He also denied that he had written a letter to the Office of the Public Defender complaining that he did not want to go court because he had seen Williams after the night of the alleged attack.