SUPREME Court judge Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell on Thursday ruled that alleged leader of the Westmoreland-based King Valley Gang Derval Williams (O/C Lukie) and his co-accused Christon Grant have a case to answer for conspiring, via cellphones while behind bars at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre, to murder a Crown witness.

Williams and Grant are among three former King Valley Gang accused who had remained behind bars in relation to other crimes after being freed by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes in July of 2020 after that gang trial collapsed.

Deputy commissioner of police (DCP) in charge of crime Fitz Bailey in 2021 told the Jamaica Observer that the men had “remained in custody and continued to perpetrate crimes from within, giving instructions and directives.

“It will be amazing when the evidence unfolds what will be revealed, what they did whilst they were in custody, when the case was dismissed,” he told the Observer at the time.

Prosecutors this April began outlining their case against the men who have been charged under a four-count indictment with one count each of ‘conspiring to murder and concealment of a prohibited article (two cellular phones)’ in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston. A digital forensics expert brought by the prosecution told the court that the confiscated phones which were entered as exhibits belonged to the men.

In one of several voice notes played into the records of the tribunal, a voice attributed to Williams was heard saying he had received intelligence that a particular top flight investigator had been visiting the targeted witness on three occasions and that she was supposedly trying to shore up evidence against them after losing the first case.

A voice supposedly belonging to Grant was also heard saying if Williams wanted to “dirt” (slang for murder) the witness, he should, “meck mi know weh yuh want. Anyting yuh a pree, juss let mi know, so mi can organise di ting”.

Several notes later, a voice identified by prosecution witnesses as belonging to Williams is heard saying “fi real man, mi ago do it, mi ago do it”.

Grant was then purportedly heard egging him on by saying in other voice notes, “mi wouldn’t mind wi use one stone and kill two bird, mi woulda juss waan yuh do so and do so and juss slap one, two, three one time; and left the whole place weeping and mourning”.

He was also purportedly heard saying, “yuh done know di sista a go leff and yuh nuh know wah him have inna fi him mind so juss use one stone clap three bird…when mi a deal wid a clean up, mi juss clean up an done. Wi caan meck sumpten like dat ketch wi agen, wi haffi learn from dat…clean up an done, meaning no after effect nuh suppose to come back”.

On Thursday, Williams and Grant, in brief unsworn statements which practically mirrored each other’s declared from the dock, said, “I did not place or hide any phone at Horizon. I did not propose with anyone or conspire with anyone to murder anyone. I have no previous convictions”.

The defence team for the men comprising attorneys O’Neil Brown and Abina Morris, following the ruling by Justice Tie-Powell that there was a case to answer, struck at the cellphone evidence relied on by the Crown which featured the 10 voice notes with the alleged assassination plan.

“Even if the court takes the view that the material put into the exhibits are certain, this content is not sufficient to cause the court to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt; we ask that the court find that the men are not guilty,” Brown said. He argued further that the voice notes were “disjointed and not sequential” and were not sufficient to prove that the men conspired to murder the witness or anyone else for that matter. Furthermore, Brown said there was no evidence that the phones truly belonged to the men, given that a witness from the prison had referenced the presence of phones which were passed from cell to cell.

A senior prosecutor for the Crown who led the evidence in the case in prevailing on the court to return a guilty verdict said, “I ask the court to find that this conversation was the beginning stages of a plan to have [Crown witness] murdered; there was a plan afoot to have her murdered. Their unsworn statement is an attempt to remove them from the situation; the Crown has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Justice Tie-Powell in adjourning the matter said she will hand down her reasons and explanations for ruling that they have a case to answer in July.

January of 2020 marked the start of the trial for nine accused members of the King Valley Gang. Three of the nine alleged members were freed by Chief Justice Sykes at the very onset, due to lack of evidence. Six others, inclusive of Williams and Grant, stood trial, but were subsequently freed of the charges that July.

The six accused had been charged in an indictment containing 11 counts on suspicion of being part of a criminal organisation; providing benefits to a criminal organisation; and conspiring to commit murder, rape, and robbery with aggravation from as early as 2013. The case was being keenly watched, largely because of the graphic description of the alleged crimes committed by the accused and also because it had been widely seen as a test of the anti-gang legislation passed six years before the trial.

A former gang member turned star witness, over several days at the start of the trial, testified via live video link from an undisclosed location, telling the court that the alleged gang members were involved in the deadly lottery scamming scheme, had committed murders and rapes in the course of robberies, and were also killers for hire.