ONLY two of the shooting events allegedly carried out by members of the Klansman gang using their “system guns” have managed to pass muster in the ongoing trial of 27 alleged members of the Klansman Gang, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has indicated.

An assistant superintendent of police (ASP) and ballistics expert in March last year testified that forensic analysis of ballistics retrieved from 10 crime scenes between St Catherine and St Andrew linked to the gang had revealed that at least 11 firearms were in play during those times. The expert, who said he had been asked by the lead detective on the case to look at 10 firearm-related incidents between St Catherine and St Andrew allegedly committed by the gang, at the time revealed the code names of five guns linked to those incidents for which the gang has been fingered. He said the “family” of firearms which were code named and given unique identifiers featured heavily in the crimes for which the alleged gangsters are facing trial. In fact, he said, of the 10 incidents analysed, nine were reflected on the indictment brought by the Crown.

But Thursday the chief justice said, “As it turned out, of the 10, six of them were no longer relevant for our purposes. The Crown was relying on the first six.”

Justice Sykes said, “Of the four events the Crown is depending on regarding [the] assistant superintendent of police, two have failed.”

Of the 10 incidents analysed, nine were reflected on the indictment brought by the Crown. These included the 2017 murder at Shoppers’ Delight in St Andrew of Damion Forrester, O/C Doolie; the November 2017 murder in Lauriston, St Catherine, of Patrick Tulloch, O/C Outlaw; the 2017 murder on the Spanish Town bypass of Bradshaw McDermott; the 2017 murder at the Spanish Town bus park of Irvine McLeggan; the 2018 murder on Jones Avenue in Spanish Town of Xavier Smith, O/C Rastaman; the 2018 murder at Phil’s Hardware in Spanish Town of Clive Issacs; the 2018 murder of Gary Patterson at the Spanish Town bus park; the double murder and arson in 2017 at New Nursery in the old capital of Jermaine Bryan and Cedella Walder; and the 2016 murder of Gary Heslop, O/C Joe Tex, at the LOJ Plaza in Spanish Town.

But, according to the trial judge, in respect of Issac’s Patterson and Heslop, there was no underpinning evidence for those allegations.

“ASP named the person as Clive Isaacs, how he got the information we don’t know because there was no evidence from any police officer stating that, ‘I went to the hardware and recovered spent shells.’ So that underpinning there of his work, certainly in respect of the alleged murder at Phil’s Hardware, just certainly isn’t there. In respect of the alleged murder of Gary Patterson on February 6, this is supposed to be someone on the Crown’s indictment known as ‘Tesha Bus Driver’. No evidence was tendered; no one turned up saying, ‘As far as I know this man was called Tesha Bus Driver, there was nothing there at all,” the trial judge said.

“It means that when ASP says this in respect of the murder of Gary Patterson, at best he was told, but the evidence supporting this not really not there, so this is really going in the boat of Mr Clive Issacs. So, of the four events the Crown is depending on regarding ASP, two have failed,” he added.

“In respect of count 18, the alleged murder of Gary Heslop is in the same boat. No underlying or supporting evidence that any of the rounds found were taken to the forensic lab and found their way into the capable hands of Mr ASP. That really leaves us with with counts seven and eight [the double murder and arson in 2017 at New Nursery in the old capital of Jermaine Bryan and Cedella Walder],” the trial judge told the court.

Prosecutors had told the court last March as well that the weapons detailed by the expert related to the counts on the indictment and were ‘system guns’.

“One of these which was tendered into evidence is the .45 [pistol] taken from Tareek James, O/C CJ [alleged shooter for the gang and one of several bodyguards for Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan]. It is a system gun, code named Ersela,” a senior prosecutor said then.

“The [two main prosecution] witnesses have spoken about systems guns, in that there are certain firearms that belong to the organisation which it uses to commit crimes, one of them is the .45 [revolver].

“We are saying it is supporting evidence. We are saying the murder at Fisheries, murder of Outlaw, and murders at the bus park, this weapon was used and the evidence for the Fisheries murders is that [Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan] took the .45 from Tareek James, shot Mr Jermaine Bryan, and handed it back to James, who used the same gun and shot Miss Walder,” the prosecutors said then.