A Jamaica Defence Force soldier yesterday testified that he and his colleagues did not attempt to stop a policeman, whom they had allegedly witnessed putting an M16 rifle into the hand of an injured teen before shooting him to death, because they were fearful of a gun battle with the police and possible attack from nearby criminals.

The soldier was giving evidence in the trial of former police constable Mark Russell in the Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.

The ex-policeman was charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of 18-year-old Ravin Thompson, who was reportedly shot at his aunt’s home in Whitfield Town, St Andrew, and died on his way to the Kingston Public Hospital in July 2007.

During the trial yesterday the JDF soldier, like his two previous colleagues, also recalled seeing Russell placing the gun in the hand of the teen before shooting him.

He was asked during cross-examination by Russell’s attorney why none of the six soldiers, including him the witness, who were present on the night the teen was shot, had not intervened.

“If we attempted to stop it, there would be a shoot-out between us and the police and there might have been criminals or gunmen who would have taken us out and I would not be here today to give this evidence,” the soldier said.

Further to that, the witness, when asked why he had never expressed fear before, insisted that he was very fearful on the night especially because they were in an area that was close to Tivoli Gardens in Kingston West.

But the attorney suggested to him that he was making up the story to support his colleagues and to protect the real killer of Thompson.

The witness, who was adamant that he was being truthful, said, “I was there that night. I saw everything.”

The lawyer asked him further how it was that he had been able to see his client placing a gun in the boy’s hand from 44 feet away in the dark. The witness maintained that he had been about 10 metres away.

The witness also testified that he did not know if the teen was alive after he was shot outside his gate.

During further cross-examination, he said that while travelling in his vehicle he saw when Russell pulled the teen’s aunt from off the vehicle while they were on their way to the Kingston Public Hospital with the teen. This, he testified, was before he had seen Russell placing the weapon in the hand of the teen after he and another officer had taken him from off the vehicle.

Andrea Thompson, aunt of the deceased teen who was in tears after she took the witness stand yesterday, told the court that her nephew, who had just graduated from high school, was alive when he was on the vehicle and had told her that he was going to be alright while she was crying.

She also testified that she had only seen one wound on his chest after he was shot outside her gate when the police and soldiers drove up and a man ran inside her yard. She said that she had not seen him with any weapon in his hand and that he was shirtless.

However, Thompson said when she got to the hospital he had multiple gunshot wounds to his face and abdomen and was covered in blood.

“I was going on really bad and shouted (at the soldiers) that ‘you people are cold-blooded murderers’,” she said, nodding her head and holding one of her hands over her heart.

Thompson testified that she did not know who killed her nephew as someone had pulled her off the vehicle and that she had fallen on the road and suffered several bruises to her body.

Jordan, however, asked her if it was the soldier whom she had indicated in her statement and who had told her a ‘bad word’ when she was crying “Murder! Murder!” and pulled her from the vehicle but she told the court that she was not certain who it was and had only assumed that it was the soldier because she was on their vehicle.

Thompson, during further evidence, also told the court that on her return home she collected 10 spent shells in a bottle and handed them over to a woman whose identity she was not certain of. Detective Corporal Dalvin English, formerly of the Bureau of Special Investigation, later testified that she had collected the spent shells from the woman and had taken them to the Government laboratory.

The trial continues today.