The main witness in the trial involving 33 individuals accused of being part of the St Catherine-based Klansman gang on Wednesday detailed how alleged leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan “was mad” after a planned hit on three victims using the gangs’ “duppy truck” failed.

According to the witness who resumed testifying before Chief Justice Sykes in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Wednesday morning, Bryan had ordered the killing of the three individuals at an area described as “Fisheries” in Spanish Town in the vicinity of the Police Academy in 2017.

The witness who said he had participated in surveillance in that instance said he had been the one to tell the individual with whom he traveled to tell Bryan that the would-be victims had been spotted. He said moments after relaying that information, the “duppy truck” – which he in another instance said was a grey Nissan Tiida used to carry out murders and shootings – with three men aboard pulled up at the location. He said in driving past, he saw one of the accused, Ted Prince otherwise called “Mawga Man”, with a gun which he fired. The witness who said he kept driving and returned to the gang’s Jones Avenue headquarters in Spanish Town said the men returned shortly after with Mawga Man reporting that “he missed the target” but that he had “shot someone else”.

According to the witness, while the other gangsters started laughing Bryan was stoic.

“He was mad … cause he wanted those guys to be dead, he wasn’t laughing sir, he was screwing,” the witness told the court.

In another instance the witness shared how he aborted a planned murder mission before a gas station in Spanish Town because he was of the opinion that the man marked for death was innocent.

The individual who said the “duppy truck ” was on hand for this hit claimed that upon seeing the intended victim he called Bryan and told him “this was an innocent man dem trying to kill”.

Asked why he said this he retorted “because that’s how he looked to mi, he was loading a bus, gunman don’t load bus”.

He claimed he then told Bryan that “mi a go a mi yard”.

He said after that he called the occupants of the “duppy truck” and told them “we are going to park back di car, we calling off di mission”.

More later 

Alicia Dunkley-Willis