Gang carried guns in woman’s handbag

The prosecution's star witness yesterday testified that the Clansman-One Don gang used a woman to transport three illegal guns in her handbag, as part of a plan to kill a gang rival.

The Home Circuit Court also heard that the target was a top lieutenant in the Tesha Miller-faction of the Clansman gang but that the hit was aborted after they could not find him.

The self-confessed gang member said that the decision to use the woman was made by him and the reputed leader of the One Don Gang, Andre 'Blackman' Bryan, who ordered the killing. The witness testified that he and Bryan decided to have the woman carry the guns as the weapons couldn't fit under the seat of the car they were using.

He told the prosecutor "We were going to Ewarton [in St Catherine] and if we get stop by the police, we never wah dem fi find those guns."

Borrowed taxi

The guns, the court heard, were picked up from the woman in Lauriston, Spanish Town, St Catherine, when Blackman, the female defendant Stephanie Christie, and another alleged gang member met up with three other alleged gangs members who were to carry out the attack. According to the witness, they all left in two separate cars with him transporting the woman in the front seat of the borrowed taxi. When they reached at a certain point, the three alleged trigger men took the guns and they continued to Ewarton in search of the intended target, nicknamed 'Ice'. The witness said that when they arrived, the designated shooters stopped at a party and at a bar looking for 'Ice' but they could not find him. As a result, he said they placed the guns back inside the woman's handbag.

The witness also testified to two more murders that he claimed Bryan had ordered the gang to carry out. One he said was the killing of a man in Thompson Pen, St Catherine, who was reportedly shot and killed while sitting on a wall and his gun stolen. The other was the murder of a bus operator at the Spanish Town bus park, who was killed after he refused to pay extortion money and was encouraging other bus drivers to do the same.

Bryan and 32 other alleged gang members are being tried on an indictment with 25 counts under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act and the Firearms Act, to which they have pleaded not guilty.