Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterThe two policemen who are accused of planting evidence at the crime scene at Kraal, Clarendon, where four civilians were shot dead on May 7, 2003, have been freed of one of the two charges against them.
Det. Sgt. Dennis Ballin and Det. Cpl. Terrence Tingling had the charge of accessory after the fact to murder withdrawn yesterday after their lawyers, Valerie Neita-Robertson and Deborah Martin, argued that a jury had already decided the issue. Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Donald Bryan conceded that the charge could not stand.
The defence lawyers argued that a jury had already decided at a trial in the Home Circuit Court that no murder took place. They submitted that the charges against the men amounted to an attack on the final decision of the jury.
The policemen are to return to the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court today as the Crown intends to proceed with the charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
An abuse of process
However, their lawyers are seeking to have that charge dropped because, they say, it is "an abuse of process". They have asked the Resident Magistrate not to grant an order for an indictment to proceed to trial.
The defence lawyers have applied for the transcript of the Kraal trial or the summation of former Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, so that the Resident Magistrate can be familiar with what took place at the trial.
Angela Richards, Lowena Thompson, Kirk Gordon and Matthew James were shot dead at Kraal, Clarendon, on May 7, 2003.
Six policemen, including Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, former head of the now disbanded Crime Management Unit, were charged with murder. They were all freed in the Home Circuit Court in December 2005.
It is being alleged that on May 7, 2003, the two policemen collected a firearm from a businessplace in east Kingston. They allegedly fired shots from it, collected the spent shells which, along with the firearm, were allegedly planted at the crime scene at Kraal.
barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com
