KINGSTON, Jamaica — Thirty-one-year-old Central Kingston labourer Dwight Leslie, popularly known as ‘Catfish’, was today freed of murder charges in the Supreme Court after his attorney Peter Champagnie, QC, successfully argued that the case against his client could not stand up to scrutiny.

Leslie, who since Monday had been on trial for the murder 21-year-old Anthony Barnes on June 1, 2007, had elected to have his case tried by judge alone without a jury.

Prosecutors led evidence that Leslie, along with others, at 10:30 on the night of June 1, 2007 shot Barnes, killing him.

Read: Police charge two men for murder of Spanish Town man

According to the prosecutors, the killing was witnessed by Barnes’ father, who subsequently died but whose written statement was relied upon in the trial against Leslie.

Champagnie, however, at the end of the case for the prosecution was successful in submitting to the trial Judge Justice L Pusey, that the quality of the identification evidence was poor.

It emerged during the trial in cross examination of the scene of crime witness that the area was dark and therefore the witness’s ability to see who killed his son was poor.

Photographs taken of the scene supported this.

Leslie had been in custody for over nine years awaiting trial.

Alicia Dunkley Willis