Three more witnesses testify in policeman murder case

At Berbice Assizes…
THE policeman who shuttled the wounded persons for medical attention after the shooting at the Soca Monarch Competition semi-finals at the Esplanade, in New Amsterdam, on February 11, 2007, testified in the murder case at the Berbice Assizes on Wednesday. The witness, Herman Fordyce, now a corporal, told Justice Winston Patterson and the mixed jury that, following the entry into the venue of ranks on patrol, he was in Police vehicle number, PJJ 4345, when he heard an explosion.

He said, on seeing a crowd gathered, he disembarked and recognised Constable Micah Cort lying on the ground with bloodstains on his clothing.

Fordyce recalled seeing Lance Corporal Newland who, with other ranks, placed the injured Cort in the tray of the vehicle which drove him to New Amsterdam Hospital.

The witness said Cort was admitted to the emergency unit of the institution before he returned to the Esplanade, where he received instructions to transport the accused, Dorsett Mc Cammon, who also suffered injury, to the same hospital.

Under cross-examination by Defence Counsel Mursalene Bacchus, Fordyce said he had observed Cort for 30 seconds, prior to returning for him with the vehicle.

The witness said a minute had elapsed between the sound of the explosion and when he saw Cort lying.

But he acknowledged that, in his deposition taken at the preliminary inquiry (PI) he said the time difference was five minutes between the explosion and his return to transport his shot colleague.

Fordyce said it was not the first time he was seeing Lance Corporal Newland when he put Cort in the vehicle. He had seen him earlier on the northern side of the ground.

POST MORTEM
Detective Corporal Cranston Fraser, who gave evidence before Fordyce, said he witnessed the post mortem examination on the body of Cort performed by Government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh at Georgetown Public Hospital mortuary.

Now attached to Parika Police Station, East Bank Essequibo, Fraser said during the autopsy, the pathologist removed a metal object from the neck of the deceased and handed it to him.

He, in turn, placed it in an envelope marked CF14BD and sealed with Police Seal number 29, which was taken to the Ballistics Section at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, Georgetown and handed to Sergeant Jackson.

Fraser said he uplifted the autopsy report from Dr Singh’s office, on May 10, 2007, together with the analysis findings from the previously marked envelope, then sealed with the Analyst seal number 95, which was, subsequently, tendered in the lower Court.

Sister of the dead man, Gail Griffith, in her testimony, remembered identifying the body of her brother to Dr Singh who, after performing the operation, handed over the remains which were buried at Stanleytown Cemetery, in New Amsterdam, on February 19, 2007.

The trial is continuing, with Mc Cammon indicted for the unlawful killing of Cort.

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