SATELLITE data presented in court of Friday suggested that alleged leader of the Klansman gang, Andre “Blackman” Bryan, and his supposedly senior lieutenant Jason Brown, also known as City Puss and Lucifer, made numerous cellular phone calls while in the custody of the State between 2018 and 2019.

The satellite data showing the 10 most frequently used cell towers featuring in calls allegedly made among members of the gang was presented by a police sergeant who is an analyst assigned to the constabulary’s Communication Forensics and Cybercrime Division.

Over the period, Bryan had been held at Central Police Station lock-up in downtown Kingston, while Brown was incarcerated at Horizon Remand Centre on Spanish Town Road. Both are among 33 people accused of being members of the St Catherine-based gang now before the Supreme Court for a range of crimes in what is the largest gang trial in the country’s history.

Many of the calls were routed through cell towers near the facilities where both men are still being held, the court was told.

The police sergeant has been on the witness stand since Wednesday presenting the link between call data records and subscriber information received from telecommunications firm Flow, along with the numbers and attributions (aliases and names of alleged gangsters) taken from three cellphones turned over to the police by a former gang member-turned-State witness who has been named as Witness Number One.

On Friday the analyst said images provided by Google Earth showing numbers that used the Central Exchange site in downtown Kingston, which is 24 kilometres away from the Central Police lock-up, showed that four cellular numbers attributed to Bryan, also called Teacher, “frequently” used that tower.

Additionally, he said Google Earth images of the North Street cell site, also in downtown Kingston, were frequently used by the same numbers attributed to Bryan. That tower is located 54 kilometres away from the Central Police lock-up.

The court also heard that Google Earth images further showed that the Harbour Street cell site was frequently used by the numbers attributed to Bryan. The analyst said he was asked by investigators to use the Central Police station “as a reference” in reviewing the call data records.

In respect of the accused Brown, the analyst told the court that Google Earth images of the Trench Town cell site, also in downtown Kingston, showed that it was frequently used by the four mobile numbers attributed to Brown, who has been behind bars since 2012 on a separate murder charge. Furthermore, Google Earth images of the Industrial Terrace cell site, also in downtown Kingston, showed heavy use by the four numbers attributed to Brown. The cop told the court that the satellite image showed that the East Avenue cell site, also in the vicinity of the remand centre, showed heavy use by the four numbers said to belong to Brown.

The cop further unveiled for the court the plethora of calls which were transmitted by the 10 cell sites most frequently used by the accused gangsters.

The West Parade site in downtown Kingston was the most used — 5,046 times; Greendale in St Catherine, the second most used — 3,942 times; the North Street site — 3,767 times; Trench Town site — 3,293 times; Spanish Town Exchange site — 2,056 times; East Avenue site off Spanish Town Road — 1,659 times; Central Exchange in downtown Kingston — 1,249 times; Railway Station Site, also downtown Kingston — 1,214 times; Stadium Boulevard site in St Andrew — 862 times; and the Runaway Bay site — 785 times.

Bryan’s attorney, Lloyd McFarlane, in cross-examining the witness, insisted that the cop was “unable to verify” if any of the numbers he spoke to could in fact be attributed to his client or any of the other accused, except for the numbers of the lead investigator and the officers of the Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigation Branch of the constabulary.

“You have personally verified two numbers, but you are not able to personally verify the others,” McFarlane stated.

McFarlane also confronted the witness over the veracity of his claims, pointing out that two numbers said to be attributed to his client had, at points in the evidentiary material, not been “consistent”.

The cop responded that the information was later corrected, and said he had “no problem standing by” the information he presented.

“So you have no problem standing by numbers that were incorrect that you cannot verify?” McFarlane said in a rhetorical parting shot.

In the meantime, the analyst presented a link chart showing the International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI (a unique number assigned to mobile phones) linked to the three phones — a Samsung, a Vonino XY10Z and an Alcatel — used by Crown Witness Number One which, he said, were the same as those supplied by Flow in the call data records it provided to the court. Those numbers attributed to the witness showed that the three cellular phones ‘communicated’ with other numbers within the call data records attributed to the various alleged gang members.

Earlier in the trial, Witness Number One had testified that he turned over to the police the three phones, two of which were given to him by the cops, with recordings of conversations between himself and members of the gang. The witness, who said he started working undercover with the police in 2018, while Bryan was incarcerated, to help dismantle the gang, had told the court that the third handset was given to him by a member of the gang on Bryan’s orders. He said he downloaded a call recording app to automatically tape multiple cellphone conversations which were also saved. He forwarded the recordings to cops when the memory became full.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 10:00 am on Monday when cross-examination of the police witness is expected to continue.