Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHERE WERE fireworks yesterday at the trial of Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams and the five policemen charged with the murder of four civilians at Kraal, Clarendon, on May 7, 2003.
The doctor who performed the post mortem, said he saw fragments of bullets being shown to him which he did not recognise.
Defence lawyers had strongly objected to the fragments, which the prosecution said were recovered from the bodies, being tendered in evidence.
POST-MORTEM
The prosecution was putting in the fragments, which were in clear plastic bags, through Government forensic pathologist Dr. Kadiyala Prasad who performed the post-mortem on the bodies on May 22, 2003, at the Spanish Town Hospital Morgue.
The lawyers objected on the ground that no proper foundation was laid for the admission of the items.
They said there were no identifiable marks on the fragments and the doctor made no reference to having anything to do with the plastic bags in which the fragments were.
They said the doctor could only tender in evidence the envelopes which he labelled, and the tissue paper which he said he made marks, and placed the fragments in, before they were placed in the envelopes. The doctor said, the fragments were given to the police after he took them from the bodies.
The Chief Justice overruled the objections and said it was a matter of weight and had nothing to do with admissibility.
On being shown fragments of bullets which were in plastic bags, the doctor said he recognised the fragments which were recovered from the bodies of the deceased Kirk Gordon and Matthew James, but there were fragments among those shown to him, that he did not recognise.
The Chief Justice said that those he did not identify would have to be put aside.
This prompted defence lawyer Earl Witter to ask the Chief Justice what was going to be the fate or future of the items (fragments) which were not tendered in evidence.
"I am not in charge of the prosecution. I think you are rude," the Chief Justice replied.
The doctor described the gunshot wounds he found on the bodies and said death would have occurred instantaneously or within five minutes after they were shot. He said he saw no gunshot depositions (residue) on the entrance wounds to the bodies which meant that the muzzle end of the gun was beyond two to three feet of the deceased. He said while performing the post- mortem he found a bullet in the pocket of the deceased Gordon.
The trial continues on Monday in the Home Circuit Court.
