CHIEF Justice Bryan Sykes and a senior prosecutor on Monday locked horns over whether evidence offered by the Crown was sufficient to pin the alleged murder of a man in 2018 to accused leader of the Klansman Gang Andre “Blackman”.

The alleged murder, which is count 20 of the 25-count indictment charging the 28 remaining alleged members of the gang for various crimes, was said to have taken place at Phil’s Hardware in Spanish Town.

The Crown was responding to the no-case submissions made by defence attorneys at the end of May.

According to the evidence elicited from Witness Number One, a former gangster-turned-State witness, on the day in question Bryan had supposedly been upset that not enough people were being killed in St Catherine compared to other parishes. According to the witness, the unsuspecting victim was then spotted walking in the area where the hardware is located. Bryan, who was reportedly irritated by the man’s presence, was asked by one of the accused, who is also presently on trial, what should be done about the man.

“Nyam him food,” Bryan was alleged to have responded, a colloquial expression meaning to kill someone.

The court was told that a gang member went into a yard and from there shot the man dead. The body remained on the scene for some length of time before it was removed by a van from a funeral home.

“We are asking the court to infer that the man who was shot several times, whose body did not move on its own volition and was subsequently removed by persons, was a dead body, and we are contending that at this stage there is sufficient evidence for Mr Bryan to be called upon as it relates to count 20, the standard being on a balance of probability,” the senior prosecutor asserted.

The Crown said Bryan, who is additionally charged with being leader of the gang, also gave orders for the sale and purchase of firearms and ammunition for the gang, and gave instructions that could not be refused.

The trial judge, in questioning whether there was any other evidence outside of what was said by the witness, was told ‘No’ — to his chagrin. The Crown was only able to offer that the police had been on the scene, by virtue of the witnesses’ account, as no police officer came to testify to that effect.

“What the Crown has put up is all it has,” the prosecutor said.

However, the chief justice responded: “Some people would find that quite a remarkable state of affairs in that, here we are in the 21st century, it is being alleged that a person is shot and killed, he is supposedly lying on the ground, the police arrive and there is no evidence, no photographs, nobody from the scene of crime, no investigating officer, nothing to say that a body was found with gunshot wounds. This is not over the bush, this is in the vicinity of Spanish Town.”

According to the trial judge, since there had been no police witness to offer further evidence, prosecutors could have drawn on the funeral home that removed the body or even a relative.

However, the prosecutor argued that the police who went to the scene have since left the constabulary.

But the chief justice, in discounting that explanation, noted that the more-than-century-old organisation was highly regulated and would have records.

“You are asking the court to accept that this person actually died, and the police are supposed to have gone on to the scene, so why should we accept that, even at this stage — in the absence of any supporting record of any kind — nothing? Not even a photograph? No report? Nothing? Just a naked assertion from a witness [that] ‘Yes, a person was killed,’ ‘Yes, the police came,’ and the structure of the force is such that there is no record?” the trial judge questioned with an incredulous tone.

“I can’t accept that in this day and age a judge of the Supreme Court is to accept that the Jamaica Constabulary Force, after a hundred years of existence, has no record of going to the scene of a death… What you are telling me now is a bit hard to accept in this day and age. We are not talking about whether or not there was a murder, just the fact that there was a death — no post-mortem, nothing? There must be some record, even from the funeral home…that is the difficulty I am having,” the judge stated.

And, the Crown would have gone on to outline its case against Bryan, under Count One of the Indictment which charges him alone for leadership of the organisation, but for an objection from his lawyer Lloyd McFarlane who indicated that he did not make a no-case submission for Bryan in respect of that count.

Asked by the prosecutor whether this meant the judge did not want to hear the Crown’s evidence on that count, Justice Sykes said, “Well, if Mr McFarlane is accepting that a case is made out at count one, then there is no point in belabouring that point.”

The Crown, in the meantime, also responded to the no-case submissions for the defendants Tomrick Taylor, also known as Fancy Ras; Daniel McKenzie; Kevaughn Green (Bryan’s brother); Kalifa Williams, alias Baba; Michael Whitely, alias Stennett; and Pete Miller, otherwise called Smokie.

So far, four defendants of the original 33 accused who had been standing trial since last September were freed by the judge last month, following an admission by the Crown that the evidence against them was insufficient.

A fifth defendant also walked following a no-case submission by his attorney.