Detective lists other parishes 'affected' by Klansman gang

over 2 years in Jamaica Observer

A veteran police investigator assigned to the Counter-Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigations (C-TOC) Unit yesterday said the St Catherine-based Klansman gang had its tentacles in more than five parishes in the island.According to the investigator, who is among six police witnesses who have so far taken the witness stand in the trial of 33 people accused of being members of the gang, other communities "affected" by the criminal organisation, outside of Spanish Town and its environs, were in the parishes of "Clarendon, Manchester, St Ann, Trelawny, among others".He said his investigations into the outfit, which began in April 2015, had pegged more than 50 individuals, with key persons of interest being alleged leader of the One Don faction of the gang Andre "Blackman" Bryan, his brother Kevaughn Green, Sheldon "Termite" Walters, and Tesha Miller, also called Hombre, the reputed leader of the other faction of the gang who was convicted in 2019 in a separate trial.Yesterday the Crown continued to shore up its case by corroborating the evidence of the lead investigator in the case who completed testifying last week, with the senior detective sharing similar details of the 2018 arrest of Bryan along with his brother, mother, and sister-in-law; the 2019 discovery of remains at an alleged burial plot in Rivoli, St Catherine, used by the gang to inter victims; and the July 2019 arrest of Jamaica Defence Force Private Jermaine Angel Robinson, an alleged member of the outfit.The lead police investigator, on December 1, had detailed for the court the 2018 pre-dawn police operation in which Bryan was held at his posh apartment on Shortwood Road in the Corporate Area. Yesterday, the senior sleuth said when officers visited the premises and "shouted police" it was sometime before Bryan or any of his family members responded. He said, armed with a warrant, the team conducted a search of the premises, which unveiled nothing of evidentiary value. He told the court that none of the family members, when told the reason they were being taken into custody, made any reply.In the meantime, the senior detective said he had been the one to supervise a team of police officers and members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) on at least two occasions in 2019 in search of a burial plot allegedly used by the gang. The detective said Witness Number One, in the company of several detectives in 2019, had travelled to the different areas where the witness "pointed out [sites where] several of the gang's activities and crimes were committed". Among the scenes visited was the area in Rivoli where two men from Denham Town, who had allegedly been kidnapped by the gang, were murdered. The team, he said, then went to Waterloo Lane where the bodies had been buried.Witness Number One's testimony of that incident has been hotly disputed by defence attorneys for the accused named in that crime.Yesterday, the detective said search activities aided by a cadaver dog named "Chad" and a tractor operated by members of the JDF led to the unearthing of a human skull, human bones, and items of clothing, following a particular excavation exercise.The detective also recalled for the court the July 22, 2019 arrest of JDF operative Jermaine Robinson. According to the detective, acting on instructions from a "superior officer" he, in the company of two other detectives, visited the army base in St Andrew where he was escorted to a room to meet Robinson who was "dressed in military clothing". He said the young private, who was assigned to the engineering regiment of the JDF, provided him with a Trelawny address. He said Robinson, when told he was a suspect in the gang investigations and informed that he would be taken into custody, said nothing. A search of his quarters at Up Park Camp, the detective said, revealed nothing "incriminating".Yesterday, the detective, like his colleagues before him, identified Bryan, Green, and Robinson for the court.In November the lead detective, in his evidence, had said during a visit to Robinson at the Grants Pen Police lock-up where he was taken into custody, the army man told him that his father was also a member of the JDF.In early November, Witness Number One, in his evidence, alleged that Robinson was agitated that the gang was losing ground after Bryan was locked up in 2018 when the gang began splintering.

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