Defence attorney Kimani Brydson, who represents three of the 33 accused facing trial for crimes committed by the infamous Klansman Gang on Thursday, in an ironical twist, questioned telephone exchanges between the lead detective in the case and Witness Number One, the former gangster turned Crown witness.

The recordings of ostensibly incriminating conversations between the gangsters were secretly made by the witness, an ex-gang member, using the phones — two of which were given to him by the cops when he started working with the police undercover in 2018.

Several of those conversations were played into the records of the court by the prosecution over several days in February this year after the phones, the compact discs with the recordings, and the transcripts of those recordings were entered into evidence. Prior to Thursday, the exchanges between the witness and his former allies had been the focus of the questioning.

But Brydson, who represents the accused Daniel McKenzie, Tomrick Taylor and Owen Ormsby, after the Crown closed its case on Tuesday, requested the court’s permission to have Witness Number One return to the stand for further questioning in relation to the recordings.

Thursday when the matter resumed before trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes in the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston, Brydson requested of the court that the clippings of two recordings from exhibit 50 be played in the witnesses’ hearing. In both snippets the witness identified the voices heard as his and the lead investigator.

Asked by Brydson whether the lead investigator had been aware that he was being recorded during those conversations, the witness replied that the handset had been programmed to automatically record conversations insisting, “Sir, the phone automatically record, I do not know, Sir”.

Brydson further questioned the witness as to whether an amount of $94,500 referenced in the conversation was in Jamaican or United States denominations and whether that money was offered to him before or after he was being treated as a witness.

“It was in Jamaican; Sir, this money was to buy some clothes and groceries, I was already on the unit,” the witness who was taken into protective custody in 2019 painstakingly replied.

Asked by the attorney why it was that the lead detective “whispered” when he spoke of the money, the witness snapped, “when you see Mr (lead detective) you ask him”.

In the second conversation where the lead detective was heard telling the witness that he had been instructed not to converse with the witnesses about certain details for fear of compromising the case, Brydson again quizzed the ex-gangster about whether the senior sleuth knew he was being recorded.

“Sir, the phone records automatically, I can’t read Mr (lead detective) mind,” the witness responded brusquely.

Asked how many people were on the call, the witness in a wearied tone said, “Sir, so far I hear two persons, when it finish play I can tell yuh”.

Questioned by Brydson about whether he had dropped his voice at an instance in the conversation due to his device malfunctioning or had manually altered his voice, the witness in a tone that brooked no argument snapped, “speak to the experts about that, I’m not a technical person”.

On Tuesday after seven months of eliciting evidence from multiple police and civilian witnesses and the two former gang members turned Crown witnesses, the prosecution rested its case in the trial of the 33 accused who have been charged with breaches of the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) (Amendment) Act, commonly called the anti-gang legislation, and the Firearms Act.

Members of the defence bar are to begin their no-case submissions on behalf of their clients on May 24.

The Crown is alleging that the accused, between 2015 and 2019, carried out a range of murders, conspiracies to murder, extortion and arson throughout St Catherine.