Defence continues grilling police witness
BY PAUL HENRY
Co-ordinator – Crime/Court Desk
henryp@jamaicaobserver.com
THE defence in the Vybz Kartel murder trial yesterday continued its grilling of prosecution witness Sergeant Patrick Linton, on a day that saw complaints that a defence expert was detained by the police on Wednesday and documents pertinent to defending the accused men were taken.
The development, complained of before jurors in the Home Circuit Court, along with evidence that came out yesterday and over the course of the proceedings, could lend credibility to the defence’s position of a conspiracy by the police to convict the men who have been on trial since November for the alleged August 16, 2011 murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams over two missing guns.
However, Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, QC, told the court that no items were seized by the police from the expert identified as Philpott Martin and that he was released after she brought it to the attention of Superintendent Clifford Chambers, who heads the Organised Crime Investigation Division, that he’s an expert for the defence.
Tom Tavares-Finson, who represents Vybz Kartel, complained to Justice Lennox Campbell that a warrant was prepared by Inspector Warren Williams, who had been a witness in the case, and executed on Martin and that compact discs and a statement were taken.
The attorney asked the court for an order that the police return the items but Campbell made no such order and, following Llewellyn’s response, told the panel of 12 jurors: “This does not concern you at all.”
That aside, Linton, the former Cybercrime Unit boss, took the witness stand for continued cross-examination, where his social media use was again raised and the integrity of his work in the case questioned. He was also branded a liar by attorney Pierre Rogers (representing accused Kahira Jones) on three occasions and called a spy by Michael Lorne, which caused prosecutor Jeremy Taylor to quip, “Of course, and his number is 007”, triggering laughter from the jurors and others inside the packed number two courtroom.
Under cross-examination from Tavares-Finson, Linton testified that he couldn’t speak to the origin of a video that he said he had lifted from the SD card of a cellphone seized in the case. He testified also that he couldn’t say whether the video was modified or if the sound on the video was placed there.
Asked by Tavares-Finson if he could present proof that the material wasn’t manipulated, Linton said he had not modified or “introduced anything foreign” to the material he extracted from the SD card.
Linton had testified in the past and had also stated in his statement that he started extracting material from the SD card on October 22, 2011. He then changed that date this week to October 14, when confronted by the defence with evidence to the contrary.
Yesterday, forensic image of the SD card presented in court for the first time — on the request of the defence — showed that the card was also accessed on October 6 and 10, 2011. Questioned on these dates by Tavares-Finson, Linton said he can’t speak to whether the SD card was modified on the 6th and 10th.
“Then your evidence here is worthless,” the attorney said, to which Linton repeated that he first started extracting information from the SD card on the 14th. The cop also denied that his evidence was made unreliable because of the various dates that he had given as to when he first started lifting the information from the card.
At one point Tavares-Finson told Vybz Kartel to stand and asked Linton if he was “obsessed with this man”.
“Obsess is a strong word,” Linton said. The attorney then asked Linton about the website urbanislands.com and asked him if he ever posted comments about his client on YouTube. “I’ve commented on all the singers,” Linton said.
“Don’t you think that as a senior man you should be more careful?” the lawyer asked.
“About what?” Linton asked.
“The things you do on the computer at nights,” Tavares-Finson shot back to laughter.
Linton said his postings didn’t cast a cloud over his evidence. He also denied that his evidence “fell short of the mark” because he cannot verify the information he took from the SD card or speak to whether the information was modified.
For his part, Rogers probed Linton about questionable time on messages that were sent by an accused in the matter. In response to his answers Rogers called him a liar. Linton said he authorised no one to use, on the 6th or the 10th, the phone from which the video and voice notes were taken. He said the material on the phone would be unreliable if an unauthorised person were to access the phone to modify the content on the SD card.
He said he did not authorise the use of the phone in question from which calls were made at night when it was supposed to have been turned off and locked away in his locker.
Vybz Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer; Andre ‘Mad Suss’ St John; Shane Williams; Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell; and Jones are
on trial.
The trial continues today with Linton’s continued examination
by Lorne.