Questions Raised – By Latrishka Thomas
Questions Raised Over Accused
Whether or not the rights of an accused were properly respected during police questioning became the central issue in court on Wednesday, as a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officer faced cross-examination from all three defence attorneys in the murder trial of three men accused of killing senior Customs official Nigel Christian.
The officer, who assisted with the interview of accused Wayne Thomas and Lasean Bully alongside another officer, was pressed from different angles with each attorney identifying a different gap in how the process had been handled.
At the heart of the cross examination was the idea that Thomas had been interviewed without a lawyer present.
Attorney Sherfield Bowen, who represents Thomas, laid out some failures before the witness. While the officer confirmed that Thomas had been advised of his right to legal representation and agreed to proceed without it, she could not say whether anyone had asked him who his lawyer was or why he was willing to continue unrepresented. She disputed that no records existed regarding whether he was fed in custody. Bowen did also establish, however, that despite those circumstances, his client had been fully cooperative and answered every question put to him during the interview.
Attorney Wendel Alexander, who represents accused Saleim Harrigan, approached the witness with equal force. He questioned why, for a case of this profile and gravity, the interviews had not been conducted on video — a method that, he argued, would have better captured the authentic reactions of those being questioned. The witness said the decision rested with superiors. Alexander also raised the conduct of the Crown’s key witness — the driver who allegedly transported the accused on the day of the murder — asking whether that individual had been behaving disruptively when brought in and had even suggested that if he were locked up, the country would shut down. The witness said she could not recall.
As the cross-examination continued and the witness pushed back on question after question about standard police procedures — including whether proper waiver of rights forms had been completed and whether the witness had access to the police morning state. Alexander’s frustration reached its peak and he directly called the witness a liar. It was one of the sharpest moments the trial has produced.
Attorney Michael Archibald, who represents accused Lasean Bully, raised a separate concern, questioning why investigators had asked the accused about DNA during the interview at a time when the relevant items had not yet been tested.
Earlier in the day, the supervisor of the 911 operators — who had previously told the court that the timestamp for Christian’s brother’s emergency call was no longer retrievable — returned to the stand. He had located a physical logbook — used to record police requests for call recordings — containing an entry he himself had made in November 2020, noting that the call had come in at 6:39 in the evening.
Under questioning from Bowen, however, the witness acknowledged that the entry had been made months after the call, based on what was in the system at that time, and that he had never independently verified whether the timestamp was accurate.
The court also heard briefly from a contractor who had owned and operated a farm in Cassada Gardens since 2006. He told the court he discovered the deceased’s truck parked near his property one evening and reported it to police the following morning. Under cross-examination he recalled one of the doors wa slightly ajar, confirmed there were multiple access roads to the farm, and said he neither saw nor heard the vehicle arrive and observed no other vehicles in the area.
Another police officer commenced giving evidence before the case was adjourned until Wednesday.
Saleim Harrigan, Wayne Thomas and Lasean Bully are accused of abducting Christian at gunpoint from his McKinnons home on July 10, 2020 — with two of the men allegedly dressed in Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force camouflage — before shooting him to death on a dirt road in Thibou’s that afternoon.
Christian had been a member of a team that was investigating Customs fraud at the time of his death.
