Keith Clarke trial to resume on Tuesday

The ongoing trial into the murder of St Andrew accountant Keith Clarke will resume on Tuesday after the matter was adjourned yesterday due to the unavailability of witnesses.

Lead prosecutor Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor informed Justice Dale Palmer that the witnesses had challenges attending due to the flash flood warning coupled with personal engagements.

Lance Corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley and Private Arnold Henry are charged with the accountant’s May 2010 murder.

The 63-year-old accountant was shot 25 times inside his master bedroom at his Kirkland Close, St Andrew, home on May 27, 2010, during a police-military operation to apprehend then-fugitive drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

Clarke’s widow and daughter previously testified that they witnessed Clarke being shot while climbing down from the closet, with his back turned to the soldiers. Clarke’s daughter, Brittany, had insisted that he was shot at the window while coming down.

Both relatives had also insisted that they were home alone with Clarke when they heard sounds and thought criminals were breaking in on them.

The island’s former chief forensic pathologist had supported the account given by relatives of the businessman that he was shot while climbing down from the closet, with his back turned to the soldiers.

Dr Dinesh Rao had testified that 25 external wounds were observed on Clarke’s body during the post-mortem and that 20 had been fatal.

Additionally, he said 16 of the gunshots were to Clarke’s lower back and that other injuries included gunshot wounds to his face and chest as well as forearm.

According to Rao, Clarke’s death was as a result of traumatic shock caused by extensive laceration of his lungs, heart, intestines, and kidneys, resulting from multiple gunshots to his back.

However, another witness, Brigadier Mahatma Williams, who commanded the unit linked to the death of the businessman, previously testified that based on an aerial video that captured the shooting on the grounds of the premises, he believed that the soldiers “acted in good faith”.

The aerial video, which was disclosed last month by the prosecution, was recorded by the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) from a helicopter.

Williams testified that after the incident, he and others reviewed the video, which showed that the soldiers came under attack from insurgents inside the Clarkes’ premises and that the soldiers had followed the requisite drills.

Williams also told the court that the JDF had relied on intelligence, which led them to the premises, and that his team came under attack while heading to Kirkland Close.

Meanwhile, the last witness, a former senior investigator at the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), told the court on Wednesday that she did not exercise any independent judgment in her investigation of the murder case.

The witness, Taneish Wisdom-Banton, under cross-examination from King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie, said everything she did was at the behest of former INDECOM director Terrence Williams.

While admitting that she was, to some extent, familiar with the INDECOM Act, the investigator said she was not aware of the requirement for employees to function in an independent, impartial, and objective manner.

She had also disclosed during cross-examination that her investigation of the case was very minimal and that she first visited the scene in 2014 and later in 2018.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com