JUSTICE Dale Palmer on Wednesday ordered that the long-running Supreme Court case involving three Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) soldiers who were charged with the March 2010 murder of businessman Keith Clarke proceed to trial on April 15.

However, King’s Counsel Valerie Neita Robertson, who is representing the soldiers — lance corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley as well as Private Arnold Henry — said that it is unlikely the trial will begin on April 15 because she has filed an appeal.

“We don’t agree with the judge’s decision. If we want the decision to be heard by a higher court in the interest of justice, it should [delay things],” Neita Robertson told journalists.

However, regardless of the plans of the defence team, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn said her team is ready for an April 15 trial.

“There was a preliminary hearing, as was directed by the Court of Appeal, and after hearing everything the judge ruled that the matter is to go to trial and that, in effect, the good faith certificates would not be a bar to us going to trial. The matter has been set to commence on the 15th of April.

“I don’t know about what the defence plans to do, but mouth mek fi talk. The Court of Appeal was quite clear in its directions and the judge, his Lordship, indicated that he certainly would be making his written submissions available. As far as the court is concerned, we are to ready ourselves on the 15th of April, and the Crown is ready,” Llewellyn said.

The case has been in the courts since 2012 when the DPP ruled that the soldiers be charged with murder.

Clarke was allegedly shot 21 times by the soldiers on March 27, 2010 at his house on Kirkland Close in St Andrew during a police-military operation to apprehend then fugitive Christopher “Dudus” Coke.

The trial of the soldiers was set to begin in 2018; however, it was stalled after immunity certificates were presented by JDF lawyers which shielded them from prosecution for their actions during the operation.

The immunity certificates were signed in 2016 by former Minister of National Security Peter Bunting.

In February 2020, the Constitutional Review Court ruled that the certificates were unfair and unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal then ordered that before the trial begins, a
voir dire, or a trial within a trial, must be conducted to determine whether prosecutors can rebut the certificates of good faith issued by the minister.

That matter was finalised on Wednesday when Justice Palmer handed down his ruling that the certificates cannot bar the trial from proceeding and that it should go on.