The prosecution’s first police witness in the Klansman trial began testifying Tuesday morning regarding the intelligence secretly recorded by a former gang member turned crown witness of multiple interactions involving alleged members of the criminal enterprise.

The recordings which were transcribed by an investigator in the presence of the witness are part of the lineup of evidence the Crown will be presenting in the trial which began in September.

The investigator, taking the stand under questioning from a prosecutor, said the transcription of the recordings began in 2019 and ended in 2021.

Witness number one, a former gang member turned police informant, testified that he gave the police three phones with recordings of conversations between himself and members of the gang, including alleged leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan.

He said he downloaded a call recording app that was set to automatically record multiple cell phone conversations which were also saved. He forwarded the recordings to cops and when the memory became full, the witness said, he took it back to the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations Branch (CTOC), where the recordings were transcribed.

As the recordings played, the witness said he identified each voice heard to the cops.

The witness, who said he started working with the police undercover in 2018 while Bryan was incarcerated to help dismantle the gang, said two of the phones were given to him by cops and the third was given to him by a member of the gang on Bryan’s orders, the witness said.

Bryan is among 33 alleged members of the One Don faction of the Klansman gang on trial for atrocities committed by the criminal enterprise.

More later

Alicia Dunkley-Willis