‘No clue what this case is about’, says judge
- Airport worker freed of drug charges
ST JAMES, Jamaica — Citing inconsistencies and lack of coherence in witness testimony, presiding parish judge Sasha-Marie Ashley on Tuesday dismissed drug-related charges against former airport worker Indra Waite.
Waite had initially been accused of conspiring to smuggle more than 11 kilogrammes of cocaine on a flight bound for Canada in 2021. The drug was valued at $88.1 million. She was charged with possession of criminal property and aiding and abetting.
On Tuesday, Judge Smith-Ashley explained her decision by pointing to inconsistencies and lack of coherence in the testimony of the five prosecution witnesses in the case against Waite. Defence attorney Henry McCurdy had previously argued for a no-case submission on Waite’s behalf.
“An officer came and testified that on the 29th of October at 6:00 pm, she was part of a team of officers who took Ms Waite to an address on Salt Spring Road in St James. Ms Waite took her to a room that she identified as hers, and from a closet, she took $90,000 and said ‘This is the rest of the money’,” Judge Ashley stated as she went through the notes that she had written.
“I have $90,000 being handed over by Ms Waite, I have interviews, but only a record of one part of the interviews, and that’s all I have. I have dots with absolutely no connecting lines; I have no clue what this case is about. And so, I am duty bound to say that the no-case submission must succeed,” Ashley continued, before relieving Waite of the charges.
According to the allegations, on October 10, 2021, a bag containing the cocaine was placed on board a Sun Wing aircraft bound for Canada from Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport. The cocaine was intercepted at the Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada, and one person was arrested in that country in connection with the seizure.
Waite, an airport supervisor at the time of her arrest, was charged in connection with the cocaine seizure, along with three other defendants: Brelanie Reid, Tavon Murray, and Romaine Kerr.
Waite was the only defendant left in the case when her trial began on November 16, 2022.
