KING’S Counsel Peter Champagnie on Wednesday continued his push to discredit the testimony of Dr Claudette Clarke, the widow of accountant Keith Clarke, as he charged that she lies and avoids questions whenever she is cornered.

Champagnie is representing Lance Corporal Odel Buckley, one of three Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) members facing trial in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston in relation to the May 27, 2010 killing of Clarke.

The other soldiers on trial for murder are Lance Corporal Greg Tingling and Private Arnold Henry.

In an unrelenting cross-examination Champagnie pressured an emotional Dr Clarke who rejected his claim that she had told lies during her testimony.

“I don’t agree,” said Dr Clarke, while appearing to be speaking to herself or praying between answering the questions.

Champagnie tackled Dr Clarke about evidence she gave earlier in the trial that her husband was shot by the soldiers as he attempted to come down from the top of a closet inside the master bedroom at their house.

Dr Clarke had testified that her husband, who was unarmed, was dismounting the closet with his back turned to the soldiers when he was shot.

But Champagnie suggested to Dr Clarke that when she said that to the jury she lied.

“I don’t agree and the scientific evidence will show [that],” declared Dr Clarke.

Champagnie punched back immediately with two follow-up suggestions. He told the witness that when her husband was shot, she was still inside the master bathroom with her daughter and therfore did not see what occurred.

He also suggested that she knew that gunmen were staying at her house in the basement.

Dr Clarke responded by saying “No, sir” to both questions, but it was the second question that evoked what appeared to be painful emotions in the widow.

“There was nobody in my house except for me and my family. There were no gunmen in my house,” she insisted with a raised but shaky tone, appearing to be nearly in tears.

Champagnie quizzed Dr Clarke on whether she had mentioned, in an affidavit that she had filed in the civil court, that her husband fired his gun on the night he was killed.

“Didn’t you?” said Champagnie as he pressed for a response.

“I am not sure, sir,” responded Dr Clarke which prompted Champagnie to repeat his claim that she lies when cornered by questions, even simple ones.

At different points during the cross-examination Dr Clarke insisted on answering the questions the way she wanted to, by giving additional information that was not requested and also by not giving definitive answers to some of the questions.

But Champagnie took her to task about not giving straightforward answers.

“Apart from a PhD, do you have a first degree?” Champagnie asked.

Dr Clarke responded, “Yes, sir, I don’t know anyone with a PhD who doesn’t have a first degree.”

Champagnie then quipped, “So, if your daughter is in this courtroom and then I say I think your daughter is in the courtroom, is it the same thing?”

A fighting Dr Clarke responded, “I don’t know, sir. I don’t really teach language. I am not an expert in English Language and you are asking me a language-based question.”

Champagnie then shifted his focus as he asked Dr Clarke to state if she was 100 per cent truthful when she gave evidence claiming that when her husband was shot he was coming down from on top of the closet in the master bedroom, with his back turned and nothing in his hands.

Dr Clarke’s response arrested the attention of everyone inside the almost full to capacity courtroom.

“I don’t know if it is 100 per cent because I don’t teach maths, sir,” declared Dr Clarke.

But an unrelenting Champagnie continued the pressure as he sought to highlight inconsistencies in her statements.

“Was there an occasion when you said you don’t think your husband had his firearm in his hand?” questioned Champagnie.

Dr Clarke replied, “It is in my statement so I said it at the time.”

Champagnie then challenged her about a statement she gave to the Independent Comission of Investigations (Indecom) in which she claimed that her husband did not have his firearm in his hand when coming down from the closet.

“Were you expressing 100 per cent certainty when you gave that statement to Indecom? Is it reasonable to say you did not speak with 100 per cent certainty?” Champagnie asked.

To which Dr Clarke replied, “I was speaking the truth”.

In full attack mode Champagnie responded, “I suggest to you that every time you are cornered and being asked a question, you try to avoid it. My next suggestion is that when you told Indecom that you did not think that your husband had his firearm [when he was shot], you were not certain.”

While she admitted that she told Indecom that in a statement, Dr Clarke said she wasn’t certain whether her husband had his gun in his hand when he was shot and killed.

Champagnie then charged that the reason she was not certain was because she was not paying attention to her husband at the time and that she had no idea of how he was positioned when he was on top of the closet.

The senior attorney opined that Dr Clarke didn’t see what happened because after her husband was shot, she was ordered on the ground by the soldiers and that the bed in the room stood between her and the area where her husband landed after falling from on top of the closet.

“When you told the jury that he had nothing in his hands, it was because you couldn’t see what was happening. The bed was in-between you and where your husband fell,” Champagnie said as he continued his cross-examination of the widow whose husband was shot nearly 30 times at their house in Kirkland Close in Red Hills, St Andrew, during a police military operation aimed at capturing then-fugitive Christopher “Dudus” Coke.