THE Crown yesterday invoked its powers to haul telecommunications giant Digicel before the court in order to get critical call data records and cell site details linked to recorded conversations between alleged Klansman gangsters and several confiscated handsets which form part of the evidence in the case against 33 people accused of being members of the criminal organisation.

The move comes after prosecutors had last month disclosed that the police faced “challenges” in obtaining the records from the island’s two telecommunications companies.

Last Monday indications were that the impasse had been resolved in part, with telecoms provider Flow having turned over the requested information to the cyber forensic division of the police force. The prosecutors, at that time, indicated that they might have to invoke the powers of the court to have the other provider fulfil the request.

Yesterday the Crown, in responding to queries from trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes about the progress made in the matter, indicated that Digicel was still reticent. According to one prosecutor, the reticence was not so much as it related to providing the information but more in respect to having to take the stand during the proceedings. She said the prosecution had in fact expected that the information would have been presented to it from last Friday.

“What we are dealing with now is more reluctance than anything else because with the package it requires persons to now go into the witness box. There is reluctance where that is concerned,” the court was told.

The chief justice, in chiding the Crown for waiting until this late in the trial to have the matter resolved, also voiced his displeasure with the attitude adopted by the company.

“My observation here is that it should have been addressed earlier, before the trial started. I can’t understand the reluctance and having to force people to come to court; service providers are not sacred cows. Any other witness can be compelled so I can’t understand the reluctance to compel the witnesses to come to court,” Sykes said.

Lloyd McFarlane, attorney for alleged gang leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan, was peeved at the Crown’s handling of the matter.

“What we have here is a case that started on September 20. After a lot of case management this court is intended to sit to deal with the trial, not case management, and we are still doing case management in circumstances that are entirely unfair to the defence. We should never be placed in the position where we still don’t know what the prosecution intends to present, even at the end of a whole term,” McFarlane said.

“We have reached the bridge and the prosecution should not be allowed to go further in terms of this [stage] of the evidence which they are still not in position to tell the court if they have,” McFarlane added.

Yesterday morning, in indicating that the request would be made to the registrar to prepare the subpoena to be served, prosecutors said, “We hope that they will be forthcoming.” They, however, admitted that they were uncertain as to when this would happen.

The issue is one of several hang-ups in the Crown’s case as far as devices are concerned. Earlier last month prosecutors experienced a slight reprieve after the second of three cellular phones was entered into evidence. The gadgets are among three particular devices the Crown is counting on as part of the body of evidence in the case against the alleged gangsters, one of which was entered into evidence on November 25.

Witness Number one, a former-gang member-turned-Crown-witness, had testified that he turned over to the police three phones — two of which were given to him by the cops — with recordings of conversations between himself and members of the gang, including Bryan. He said he had downloaded a call recording app to automatically tape multiple cellphone conversations, which were also saved. He had forwarded the recordings to cops when the memory became full.

The third handset, which has only so far been marked for identification, has not yet been accepted by the court after three tries on the part of the Crown.

This, as the lead investigator in the case said that when he was handed the phone he was unable to open it to retrieve the unique identification number stored inside. He said prior to the trial he had accessed that number by dialling a particular series of digits on the phone which would then produce that number. He was, however, unable to utilise the dial-up feature at the time because the phone had not been charged.

When the prosecution again asked to have the detective access the phone, which had been charged by the court’s registrar, they encountered another roadblock when it was revealed by the detective that the phone had been locked with a pin, presumably by the witness, and he was unfamiliar with that code.

Based on his not being able to prove that the identification number he had recorded in his notes was the same one attributed to the phone, the attempt to have the gadget entered as evidence failed.