Death Squad Trial | Sykes rejects statements from deceased witness
Published:Wednesday | January 2, 2019 | 1:51 PM
Nickoy Wilson, Gleaner Writer
Presiding Judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has ruled that statements by a now-deceased witness will not be admitted into evidence because they have failed to meet the legal standard.
Sykes made the ruling as the trial of Detective Corporal Kevin Adams, District Constable Howard Brown and Constable Carl Bucknor resumed in the Home Circuit Court today.
The decision follows submissions last year in which the prosecution, with the help of a handwriting expert, sought to prove the authenticity of the statements.
The statements first took centre stage on November 27, 2018, during the cross-examination of Owen Wright, the acting Chief Investigator at the Independent Commission of Investigations, who is said to have collected three statements from Christian Rhoden.
He is now deceased.
The prosecution subsequently requested that the statements to be adduced into evidence, but defence attorneys objected citing differences in the statements.
Sykes sided with the defence saying that the signatures on the statements were different even to an untrained eye.
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