THE murder trial of six policemen resumed on Wednesday in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston, with an uncle of deceased Matthew Lee taking the witness stand to confirm that he was the person who identified the body of his nephew in the morgue in 2013.

The uncle is the fourth witness to testify in the matter.

Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer were shot dead by the police during an alleged shoot-out on Acadia Drive in Barbican, St Andrew, on January 12, 2013. It is alleged that a police team was conducting an operation in the area when they signalled the driver of a Mitsubishi Outlander motor vehicle to stop. The police claimed that the driver was initially hesitant to comply with the request, but when the vehicle stopped, men alighted from it and opened fire at cops. The police said they returned gunfire, which led to three men being killed and two firearms with ammunition seized. A fourth man was said to have escaped.

On trial for the death of the men are Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, and constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch. Corporal Fullerton is also charged with making a false statement to the Independent Commission of Investigations.

Lee’s uncle told the court that he first saw his nephew’s body at the House of Tranquility morgue on the same day he was killed. He said that Lee was wearing short jeans trousers.

He explained that he saw the body again at the time of the post-mortem on January 23, 2013. He said that when he arrived a porter brought him to a doctor who then showed him where Lee’s body was. The uncle shared that when he went into the room where Lee’s body was, there were other people in the space “where he was lying on a desk”.

The witness struggled to recall how old Lee was when he was killed, but by using the 1988 Hurricane Gilbert as a marker, he said that his nephew was around 25 at the time since he was born shortly after the storm.

He said that Lee attended Wolmer’s Boys’ School and later did courses on how to better himself as a music producer. According to him, Lee drove a blue Subaru sports utility vehicle which was given to him by his mother.

The last time the uncle saw Lee alive was in the same week when he was killed. He said he saw him at his home in Smokey Vale, St Andrew.

On Friday the trial will continue with the uncle again on the witness stand.