Derek Achong

A se­questered ju­ry yes­ter­day took about 40 min­utes to re­turn a not guilty ver­dict for a Laven­tille man on firearms and am­mu­ni­tion charges.Pre­sid­ing Judge Prakash Moo­sai thanked the ju­ry for go­ing be­yond the call of du­ty and ex­empt­ed the mem­bers, who sat on Sat­ur­days and pub­lic hol­i­days dur­ing the tri­al, from ju­ry du­ty for the next three years.The ac­cused Bar­ry Al­fon­so, 42, of Do­ra­ta Street, Laven­tille was charged in March 2006 with pos­ses­sion of a Smith and Wes­son .357 Mag­num re­volver and six rounds of am­mu­ni­tion when po­lice al­leged­ly found the il­le­gal items on his per­son dur­ing a raid on his home.Dur­ing the tri­al in the First Crim­i­nal Court, two of­fi­cers who were at­tached to the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF) tes­ti­fied on be­half of the State.

De­fence at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge in his ad­dress to the ju­ry ac­cused the of­fi­cers of col­lu­sion against Al­fon­so.Moo­sai in sum­ming up sup­port­ed Sturge's ar­gu­ment and agreed with the ju­ry's de­ci­sion say­ing it was the good choice con­sid­er­ing the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed.The case was pros­e­cut­ed by state at­tor­ney Jeron Joseph while at­tor­ney Criston J Williams, in­struct­ed Sturge.Mean­while, a pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion host and a tele­vi­sion sta­tion are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore Moo­sai next Tues­day for con­tempt of court stem­ming from re­ports aired about Al­fon­so's tri­al.