‘Quite frankly, I was afraid’

Minister of Agriculture Floyd Green testified on Thursday that fear had prevented him from giving an immediate statement to investigators following a fatal 2013 police shooting along Arcadia Road in St Andrew.

“Quite frankly, I was afraid,” Green said when pressed by defence attorney Hugh Wildman as to why it had taken him four years to provide a statement.

“But you were not afraid in 2017?” Wildman asked.

In response, Green explained that the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) had “found him” after he wrote an anonymous letter to the commission outlining what he said had occurred during the incident.

Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer were shot and killed during the January 12, 2013 incident along Arcadia Road in St Andrew.

Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton and constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch are on trial for murder in relation to the shooting. The case is being heard in the Home Circuit Court before Justice Sonia Bertram-Linton.

The men were charged more than six years after the incident, which had attracted the attention of the international human rights organisation Amnesty International.

Under further cross-examination, Green said he had contacted INDECOM instead of the police because it was the body established to investigate fatal shootings involving the security forces. Asked why he had not gone to the police “as a responsible citizen”, Green said he believed the responsible course of action was to contact INDECOM.

During the exchange, Wildman sought to explore possible political connections involving senior INDECOM officials, prompting objections from prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke, who accused Wildman of introducing politics into the trial.

“This, my lady, is a classic case of a fishing expedition,” Pyke said. “The issues are very clear, and political aspects are not, it would seem to me, relevant at this stage.”

Wildman countered that his line of questioning was aimed at establishing possible bias.

He asked Green whether his party, the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), was in power in 2016, whether he was a senior party member at the time, and when he had offered himself as a political candidate.

Green testified that the JLP was not in power in 2016, that he was not a senior member of the party, and that he ran in the 2016 general election.

“And it was just after that INDECOM found you, in 2017?” Wildman asked.

Green said someone had reached out to him asking whether he was the author of the anonymous letter.

Wildman also asked whether Green knew who headed INDECOM at the time. When Green said it was Terrence Williams, Wildman asked whether Green knew that Williams’ brother had been a JLP candidate, having contested the St Andrew East rural seat.

Wildman said the questions were intended to suggest that Terrence Williams, as head of INDECOM, could have influenced the “concoction of a story” against the accused officers.

“Absolutely not,” Green responded emphatically.

Wildman retorted, “Green, you are to keep quiet.”

Following further objections from Pyke, Wildman was instructed by the judge to provide the legal authorities underpinning his position that answers to collateral questions are final, subject to exceptions such as bias.

“Where it can be established that a witness may be biased towards, in this case, the Crown, one can ask the question to establish bias and, if the witness denies it…,” Wildman said.

Green was also questioned about whether he knew Lee or his parents, or whether his father had been engaged by the JLP as an accountant, all of which he denied. He also denied knowing that Lee was from Smokey Vale in St Andrew.

Meanwhile, under continued cross-examination, Green maintained that he had not seen any of the men with weapons and that he observed the police firing what he described as a barrage of shots.

He rejected Wildman’s assertion that four men had been travelling in the car and that one had fled on to Evans Avenue, dropping a MAC-10 submachine gun.

“I never saw any gunman. I never saw anybody drop anything along Evans Avenue. I never saw anything dropped. I never saw anybody running and I never saw a MAC-10,” Green said.

He also denied telling INDECOM that he had seen three men running from the vehicle or that police had recovered a weapon, insisting that he had only indicated that he saw the police with a firearm

Wildman challenged Green’s estimate of the distance between his apartment window and the yard across the road. Green said it was about six car lengths, or roughly 72 feet, while Wildman suggested it was “well over 300 feet”, which Green disputed.

Wildman later applied for a jury visit to the scene to assess the distances. While Bertram-Linton noted that the application had been properly made, Pyke argued that it was premature, insisting the jury must first hear all the evidence. She also said the defence had alternative material available.

The trial continues on Monday.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com