BRITNEY Clarke on Monday faced more intense grilling from defence attorneys during cross-examination, with one of them suggesting that her father, Keith Clarke, assumed an ambush position on top of the closet inside his bedroom while pointing his licensed firearm at members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).

Keith Clarke was shot dead in the early morning of May 27, 2010 inside the master bedroom at his 18 Kirkland Close house in Red Hills, St Andrew, by members of the JDF who were said to be acting on intelligence they hoped would lead them to capture then fugitive Christopher “Dudus Coke.

Coke was wanted in the United States on drugs and weapons charges.

In 2012, two years after the incident, three members of the JDF — lance corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley, as well as Private Arnold Henry — were charged with murder in relation to Clarke’s shooting death. Their trial began in May in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston, after more than a decade of delays.

Britney Clarke is the second witness to testify in the trial. Her mother, Dr Claudette Clarke, was first.

On Monday attorney-at-law Linton Gordon, who represents Henry, suggested to the witness that her dad pointed his gun at the security forces before he was shot. However, she denied the suggestion.

“No sir, my father is not stupid. He wouldn’t do that. The security forces are armed,” she said, adding that although they had received a call from a neighbour alerting them to the presence of a lot of police and soldiers in their yard, they still were not sure that was so.

She had given evidence, prior to Monday, stating that on the night of May 26, 2010 she, along with her mother, arrived home after 8:00 pm, coming from a dance rehearsal. She said that when she got inside it was only herself and her mother who were in the house. She explained that she took a bubble bath before going to sleep in her room. According to her, she glimpsed her father when he arrived home.

She testified that she woke up close to midnight and spoke on the phone for a brief moment then went back to sleep.

She said that sometime after that she began hearing what sounded like continuous gunfire and other explosives going off outside her house, and it was the neighbour who told the family that it appeared as if the security forces were outside. The neighbour said nothing about criminals engaging the police and soldiers.

Things began to get more intense for the family when they heard sounds of a saw operating on entrance doors to the house and, subsequently, the master bedroom door.

Clarke said that during all that chaos her father left the room with his licensed firearm in hand and then came back. She said he mentioned he would not allow criminals to come inside his house and kill his family. After uttering those words he threw his gun on top of the closet and climbed up to hide inside a cupboard located above the closet while his daughter and wife hid in the bathroom.

On Monday Gordon pressured the witness, demanding that she respond to his suggestion that even after her father was told that police and soldiers were outside, he still took up an ambush position and fired his gun at the security forces.

“He didn’t ignore what the neighbour said,” Clarke replied. “Our house was being attacked from outside, and not on the inside. We did not know who was attacking the home or who was coming to attack us inside. The neighbour could not confirm that for us.”

When Gordon highlighted the testimony she had given before about what her father was doing when he was shot, Clarke maintained that when the security forces came into the master bedroom she and her mother emerged from their hiding place just in time to meet the soldiers coming into the room. She said that while her mother was telling the police who lived at the house, her father began to descend from on top the closet. She said that it was while he was coming down with his back turned that he was shot with more than 20 bullets.

The attorney, however, said that could not have been so.

Showing the witness a picture of the master bedroom, Gordon pointed to a window located beside the closet and asked, “Is this the window you said your father was coming down when he was shot?”

“Yes sir, he was facing the window coming down,” Clarke answered.

“What part of his front was facing the window?” the attorney asked.

“His top half,” she replied.

Gordon pointed to a section of the cupboard that was partly torn off and invited the witness to look at the section she said her father had climbed down from. He pointed out that the window was not impacted by bullets and that there was no damage to the walls on the side she said the shooting took place.

“But over here is not damaged and the glass window is intact, with no damage to it. There is no damage to the wall by the window,” Gordon told the witness.

Clarke replied, “As far as I can see, there is no damage.”

Gordon pressed further.

“There is no red on the curtain that one could use to say it might be blood.”

Clarke replied, “No, I don’t see any.”

Gordon then asked, “So if someone is shot at that window and the bullet went through the person’s body, wouldn’t it shatter the glass window? I suggest to you that he was not at the window when he was shot. I further suggest to you that because he wasn’t shot at the window, that is why the window isn’t broken. You never saw your father when he was being shot.”

Clarke, however, insisted that she did witness the shooting.

“Unfortunately I was made to witness that. You weren’t there so you can’t tell. I was there,” she insisted.

Tingling is represented by King’s Counsel Valerie Neita-Robertson while Peter Champagnie, King’s Counsel, represents Buckley.

The trial continues today when Linton will continue his cross-examination and prosecutor Sophia Bernard is expected to re-examine the witness.