Black Immigrant Daily News
One of the 27 alleged members of the One Don faction of the Clansman gang is accusing the police of physically abusing him, resulting in an injury to his arm, which has forced him to wear a sling for the purported injury.
The claim was made by Ted Prince, alias ‘Mawga Man’, prior to the adjournment of Friday’s summation of evidence in the gang trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.
The defendant is accused of being part of a criminal organisation and being allegedly involved in several criminal activities, including murder.
Prince complained to presiding judge, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, that he was referred for an X-ray by a doctor following the alleged physical abuse last week Thursday, during which he claimed the police hit his arm.
The accused man said the police have not carried to him to a medical facility to get the examination done.
Further, he is alleging that the police informed him that they were unable to carry him to get the X-ray, given the ongoing summation of the evidence at the trial.
Amid further questions from the defendant about why the police had not acted on his behalf to secure the X-ray, Sykes ordered a police sergeant to make the necessary checks to facilitate the medical visit.
Prince has been described by one of the prosecution’s main witness as being a foot soldier, a claim which he denied during his unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock.
Foot soldiers, the witness testified, were charged as being responsible for ensuring that murders that were ordered by alleged gang leader, Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan, were carried out as planned. They were also responsible for collecting extortion money on occasions.
Prince, in denying those claims last year, told Sykes that he was a shoemaker by profession, and said he knew nothing about gang activities.
“From mi born mi never get a shot yet, your honour, and mi never drive inna nuh car wid dis man guh burn down nowhere,” he told Sykes.
A witness had previously testified that Prince was among a group of gangsters who went to an informal community called ‘Fisheries’ and ‘New Nursery’, where Jermaine Robinson and his girlfriend, Cedella Walder, were shot and killed in September 2017.
Their house was subsequently set ablaze by the gangsters.
Prince maintained that the witness was telling lies on him relative to that incident.
A witness also accused Prince and another male accused, Andre Golding, alias ‘Raetae Blacks’, of torching loan agencies in the Spanish Town bus park.
Additionally, Prince was accused of following the orders of Bryan to shoot and kill a man outside Phil’s Hardware in Spanish Town, St Catherine in 2018.
The defendant vehemently denied that claim last year.
“This man (the witness) just mecking up stories. First of all, this man come a seh him see me jus kill or shoot man outta Phil’s Hardware. Mi nuh know dis man from nowhere, your honour,” Prince told Sykes during his unsworn statement last year.
“Him (the witness) tell all those lies on me, your honour. That’s my story, your honour,” said the accused man.
Bryan and Prince were found not guilty of the killing of that man at Phil’s Hardware last year because the prosecution had failed to provide evidence that the man who was shot, actually died.
There was also no evidence to prove that such a man even existed.
During this week’s summation, Sykes said evidence from counts that were previously dismissed from the indictment under which alleged members of the One Don faction of the Clansman gang are being tried, could be considered to arrive at a verdict on the existence of the criminal organisation.
Of the 25 counts that were initially on the indictment, seven failed, and the crown conceded on four counts.
Additionally, Sykes indicated that he could consider evidence that was given by former gang members in outlining crimes for which the defendants are not charged under the indictment.
On Thursday, the chief jurist emphasised that although the 27 defendants, including Prince and Bryan, were freed of some offences on the indictment, that does not absolve them from the possibility of being adjudged as being members of a criminal organisation.
The accused are being tried under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations Act), 2014, better known as the anti-gang legislation, on an indictment containing several counts, including murder and arson.
The offences were allegedly committed between January 1, 2015 and June 30, 2019, mainly in St Catherine, with at least one murder being committed in St Andrew.
NewsAmericasNow.com
