Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
CHIEF JUSTICE Lensley Wolfe began his summation to the jury yesterday afternoon in the Kraal murder case which began in the Home Circuit Court on October 31.
He told the 12-member jury comprising seven women and five men that the case was straightforward.
The only issue which he said the jury had to decide was whether, when the accused men arrived at Kraal, "were they were fired on and, in response to being fired upon, did they fire in defence of themselves"?
He told the jurors that they were the sole judges of the facts and he was the judge of the law.
Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams, former head of the disbanded Crime Management Unit, and Corporals Patrick Coke and Shane Lyons are on trial for the murder of two women and two men at Kraal, Clarendon, on May 7, 2003.
Constables Devon Bernard, Leford Gordon and Roderick Collier were charged jointly with them but, on Monday, the Chief Justice ruled that there was no case in law against them.
Yesterday, the Chief Justice told the jury that he was making it abundantly clear that the fact that the court ruled that there was a case for the three accused to answer was in no way an indication of their guilt. "It is only you who can decide their guilt or innocence," he told the jurors.
He said the jurors should not attach any significance to the fact that the other three men were released on Monday.
A 'WRETCHED LIAR'
Defence lawyers K. Churchill Neita, Q.C., and Earl Witter, in addressing the jury yesterday, asked them to free the three policemen because the Crown did not prove its case against them. Mr. Witter described Tyrone Brown, prosecution witness, as a "wretched liar".
Mr. Neita said his client SSP Adams did not fire his gun at Kraal and described Constable Tyrone Brown who testified that SSP Adams had planted a Taurus pistol at the crime scene as a modern-day Ananias. Mr. Neita said Brown had been induced to give the two statements in June and July this year and that was part of the "operation to get Reneto Adams".
