The State’s main witness in the trial of six police officers accused of murdering three friends from Moruga in 2011 completed her evidence yesterday.
WPC Nicole Clement, who was initially charged alongside her former colleagues before being made a State witness, was relieved of further participation in the case by High Court Judge Carla Brown-Antoine, yesterday afternoon.
On Monday, Clement was deemed a hostile witness by High Court Judge Carla Brown-Antoine after she refused to testify due to alleged “safety and security concerns”.
Clement’s testimony during the preliminary inquiry of the case, in which she claimed that two of the friends survived the initial barrage of gunshots on their vehicle but were executed at a second location, was read to the jury.
She was then questioned about her previous testimony by lead prosecutor Gilbert Peterson, SC, and the group’s defence attorneys Israel Khan, SC, and Ulric Skerritt.
The entire process, which lasted four days, was more of a monologue than an interrogation as Clement sat silently with her hands crossed in front of her for several hours each day as she declined to answer any of their questions.
Clement’s consistent silence continued during her final appearance in the trial yesterday.
In her previous testimony, Clement claimed that hours, before Abigail Johnson, Kerron Eccles, and Alana Duncan were shot and killed on July 22, 2011, one of her colleagues, received instructions to detain Duncan’s common-law husband Shumba James, who was wanted for several murders.
She admitted that she and her colleagues opened fire on the car James was known to have used as it drove past the corner of Rochard Douglas Road and Gunness Trace in Barrackpore.
James, who testified earlier in the trial, narrowly escaped as he opted to travel with two friends in a separate car while the trio followed behind in his.
Clement claimed that Eccles and one of the women survived the initial volley of gunshots.
She claimed that her colleagues took the duo to a dirt track off the M2 Ring Road in Woodland where they were executed.
She admitted that after the shooting, she and her colleagues were placed on seven days’ leave.
She claimed that during the period, she and her colleagues had several clandestine meetings during which they sought to ensure that their individual reports on the shooting were consistent.
The meetings were held at several locations including San Fernando Hill and the initial crime scene in Barrackpore.
“That is the normal police culture when things like this happen ... Everyone sticks together and writes the same report One squad. One song,” she said.
She claimed that one of her colleagues provided the others with information on the progress of the investigation that was leaked to him.
“He said that they (investigators) would target me as I was the weak link,” she said.
She also alleged that she was invited to join her colleagues on an impromptu recreational trip to Tobago during their period on leave.
“I told them that families had just lost the lives of their relatives and I don’t think that (Tobago trip) was right at that time,” she said.
She claimed that two of her colleagues wrote her report and she just signed it despite knowing it was erroneous.
“That is the way we were trained,” she said.
Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman, Antonio Ramadin are also represented by Arissa Maharaj. The State is also being represented by Elaine Greene, Giselle Ferguson-Heller and Katiesha Ambrose-Persadsingh.
The trial is scheduled to resume this morning.