Trial of Twelve, Including Four Cops, Faces Yet Another Delay

Twelve men, including four cops, made headlines in November 2021 when they were caught reportedly facilitating a drug landing of some 20 bales of cocaine.  Since then, the men have been back and forth in court, with multiple setbacks.  Today saw yet another adjournment in the trial.  The trial was to begin today, but another delay was presented.  Love News understands that the delay had to do with the Case Management Conference (CMC) for the 12th defendant, Police Corporal George Ferguson. Following the adjournment, defense attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley, said that the senior magistrate has set aside a specific period to conduct the trial.

Richard “Dickie” Bradley, Attorney: “Present situation is that the accused persons all appeared in the court of Senior Magistrate Baja Shoman. He has been assigned this important matter. All the accused persons have long been on bail and everyone is obeying all conditions of their bail. Today was a day in which the Senior Magistrate laid down the requirements of her court in the sense that she is prepared to set aside fifteen to twenty days as trial days which is of course a difficult matter because there are about five attorneys that are involved and as an example for today two the attorneys simply could not attend but asked other attorneys to hold for them. One was in a trial in the capital and another had a family member with a medical emergency just as an example how it’s sometimes a difficult for the matter for a continuous trial. So today was a bit of housekeeping matters, case management has been concluded. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of statements and documents that form part of the disclosure. There are seventy eight witness statements and witness documents so you can see the enormous amount of effort that the prosecution and the police investigators have put into the matter. Of course I’m on the other side so I will caution that like Builders Hardware the focus is not only on quantity but the quality of whatever evidence they will try to marshall. We return to Senior Magistrate Shoman’s court on the 5th day of February to kick off the trial, to start the trial so we as the attorneys on the defense sid will have to coordinate a bit more in relation to how we could try and complete cross examination of a certain amount of witnesses everyday and every week so we could cut down on that amount of time that is set aside.”

The case is being prosecuted by Alifa Elrington who will be calling as many as sixty witnesses. The accused men are Armando Martinez, Moises Adan Perez, Juan Esparza Sanchez, Heinrich Redecop, Johan Wall, Fredy Orlando Gongora, Delwin Casimiro, Nelson Middleton, George Ferguson, Elmer Nah, Adonis Campos, and Efrain Cano. They are charged with two counts of possession of controlled drugs with intent to supply, one count of conspiracy to land a plane at an unlicensed aerodrome, and one count of abetment of the importation of controlled drugs./////