THE mysterious ‘City Puss’, who is the only accused yet to be formally identified among the 33 individuals standing trial for various crimes committed by the St Catherine-based Klansman gang, is to be unmasked this week.

City Puss, the shadowy figure who has been heard on recordings claiming that he has served under two administrations of the gang, has not been identified by any of the witnesses so far called by the prosecution. Two former gang members-turned-Crown witnesses have themselves testified that they have never seen City Puss in person but have spoken to the man, who also goes by the alias Lucifer, multiple times on the phone.

On Thursday, prosecutors providing an update on the remaining elements of their case to trial Judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said one of three police witnesses who will next week take the stand include a retired inspector of police who “knows, arrested, charged and heard [the accused, City Puss] speak in two different ways”.

The Crown said the retired lawman will speak, listen to particular recordings, identify voices, and also draw the conclusion or the nexus between the voice heard and the face of the accused.

The alleged gangsters, during recordings played for the court, were heard several times claiming that the retired cop had no evidence against them or their leader.

The Crown said the lawman — who also carried out arrests, having been an investigator in the Spanish Town area and who was involved in the inquiries relating to this particular gang — is expected to bring a certain amount of illumination to the trial.

In the meantime, prosecutors said a high-ranking member of the police force, who ultimately made the decision as to why Witness Number One — a self-confessed criminal and former gang member-turned-Crown witness — should not be charged, will also appear before the tribunal to give those reasons.

In December, Chief Justice Sykes had questioned whether the police have “taken a policy decision” to not charge self-confessed ex-gang members-turned-State witnesses despite their own horrific crimes.

The chief justice, posing the question to the lead investigator who was at that time on the stand, underlined the concern by pointing to what he said could be a “pattern” emerging in the gang trials conducted so far. According to the chief justice, in other jurisdictions in similar cases such witnesses would be before the court in the context of a plea bargain or even a previous conviction.

And another police witness is also expected to take the stand to rebut a claim made by defence attorney Lynden Wellesley in relation to Witness Number One.

Wellesley, the attorney for Fabian Johnson, also known as Crocs, and Ted Prince, alias Mawga Man, in mid-November had accused Witness Number One of lying about having no previous convictions. According to the attorney, he had information that showed that the witness had been brought before the Supreme Court in 2012 with two other individuals to answer charges of illegal possession of firearms and assault.

“I have no knowledge of that,” said the witness, who told the court he had never been charged for anything in his life. According to the witness, who said he was forced to join the gang in 2016, he had never been a person of interest and was not on the radar of the police at the time he decided to approach them with information about the criminal organisation, even though he was eventually anointed the don in charge of the Lauriston community in the parish.

The Crown, in opening its case in September last year, had indicated that it would be calling 42 witnesses including the two former members of the gang-turned-State witnesses. They however said they would be leaning heavily on the evidence of Witness Number One, who began working with the police in 2018 to bring down the gang.

The trial is scheduled to resume on Monday morning at 10:00.