‘Have mercy’, Patrick Powell pleads with judge
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Businessman Patrick Powell this morning testified repeatedly that he did not refuse to hand over his gun but simply exercised his constitutional right to remain silent.
“In 2011, I never refused to turn over my firearm for inspection because I was in custody and have the right to remain silent, your honour. I never refused even in the absence of my lawyer all I did was insist that whenever I was to be questioned that my lawyer were present,” Powell told Judge Vaughn Smith in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.
Powell at the end of his testimony asked the judge for leniency. “My lord, this is your courtroom, you are god in here, may you have mercy,” he said.
Powell is currently on trial in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court after he was charged following allegations that he refused to hand over his licensed firearm to the police, who were probing the July 2011 murder of Khajeel Mais, for which Powell was charged but was acquitted last October.
Tanesha Mundle