Allana Mais wept on the witness stand yesterday as she recalled watching her son, Khajeel Mais, take his last breath after he was shot in what the prosecution has described as “an exaggerated form of road rage”.

The mother of three, who was the first witness to take the stand yesterday in the Home Circuit Court, where businessman Patrick Powell is on trial in the shooting death of 17-year-old Khajeel in Havendale, St Andrew in 2011, said that she saw doctors and nurses around her son in the emergency department at Kingston Public Hospital on the night of July 1.

“I saw him taking his last breath. I saw him breathing for a while, then he made a gasp, and then there was nothing,” she said through tears.

“I started screaming, and I wake up in the hospital in a room next to where he was. I think they had sedated me,” she added.

The mother had to take a moment to compose herself minutes after she took the stand and was being asked questions about Khajeel, including the year in which he was born.

She later recalled that on the day in question she had dropped him off at a taxi stand at the corner of Crane Avenue and Manning’s Hill Road in the afternoon.

Mrs Mais said her son had assisted her earlier at her business place and she was supposed to take him to a fete at Meadowbrook High School but changed her mind because she had a meeting.

“He wanted me to take him straight to the fete, and it was my intention to take him, but I had to go home and get ready for the meeting,” she said.

Mrs Mais also recalled that her son had wanted to walk to the home of his friends who were going with him to the fete, but she told him to take a taxi instead.

Following that she said she later got a call from a friend that the taxi in which he was travelling was “shot up” and he had been shot.

Following Mrs Mais’ evidence-in-chief, defence attorney Deborah Martin, one of two lawyers representing Powell, grilled her about her son’s behaviour and to ascertain if he had a troubled history.

The mother, during cross-examination, admitted that Khajeel had “attendance and behavioural issues” while at Kingston College.

She also conceded that he had a matter before the juvenile court, was suspended from school more that once, and that she was called in by the school a few times as a result of her son’s behaviour and issues he had with the staff.

In the afternoon session of the trial two police witnesses, Detective Sergeant Robert Robinson and Detective Corporal Jerome Williams, testified that they had visited the scene of the crime on Highland Drive and had recovered a nine-millimetre spent shell.

They also testified that the car in which Khajeel was travelling had what appeared to be gunshot holes in the rear window and in the rear licence plate.

Corporal Williams also testified that Khajeel had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to his shoulder and a surgical bandage around his head, while Sergeant Robinson said that he had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to his head.

In respect to the taxi, a Toyota Succeed, in which Khajeel was travelling, Sergeant Robinson said that the car had a scratch mark leading from the left front door to the rear bumper and that the front bumper was damaged.

Wayne Green, an auto body specialist, testified that a woman had brought a dark blue X6 for him to repair two days after Khajeel’s death.

Green said the vehicle had a dent in the bumper and he “filled it out” and repainted it and was paid about $15,000.

Meanwhile, lead prosecutor, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor, during his opening argument, said that the teenager was killed in “an exaggerated form of road rage”.

“Someone was angry because of what happened on the road, someone was angry because of what happened to his vehicle. The allegation is that Mr Powell was this person who was angry,” he added.

Taylor said that the Crown is contending that the taxi in which Khajeel was travelling hit a BMW X6 which, at the time, was the “it thing in luxury vehicles” and the driver of the luxury vehicle got out and fired more than one shot into the taxi.

“The young man was on his way to a fete, and because of a minor motor car accident he lost his life,” Taylor told the jury of five men and two women.

The trial will resume today with Sergeant Robinson continuing to give evidence before Justice Lloyd Hibbert.

Powell, who is being tried for murder and for shooting with intent, had his bail extended.