BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – JAHARI BART, a young man who is currently serving a life sentence for the April 6, 2011 murder of Laustin Jamie ‘Big Ship’ Williams, the son of Retired Commissioner of Police Austin Williams, maintains that he is innocent and claimed that three police officers had produced false evidence against him.
The mother of the convicted youth, Magalene Hazel, visited this media house yesterday (Oct. 25) and produced a photo-copied document headlined ‘Innocent man’, which she claimed was written by her 25-year-old son.
The document states: “At the age of 25 I lag captive. A young man plucked from the comfortable confines of his mother’s house and slammed with a murder charge I knew nothing about. Yet in spite of 6 years of maltreatment and a guilty verdict I strive, optimistic with relation to my emancipation from 1840.”
Identifying himself in the document, Bart said he is a man condemned to a life of incarceration and is known in “my hometown as a kind, helpful, warm-hearted and resilient respectable young man”.
“At the age of 19 I was charged for the inhuman act of murder of Laustin Jamie ‘Big Ship’ Williams who was the son of an ex-commissioner was gun down in the Buckley’s area during a game of cards on 6th of April 2011. I was arrested on 10th April 2011. Robbed of my prime years, family, social life and the rights as a citizen of this beloved country,” he wrote.
Bart also said he had endured four trials – two mistrials, one hung jury and at the final trial sentenced on July 10, 2017 sentenced to life imprisonment.
“A case presented against me bombarded with fabrications on behalf of R.S.C.N.P.F included false allegations that any objective individual would give second thought to before deeming it circumstantial,” he said.
He also said that he was convicted without any substantial evidence such as DNA, eyewitness account or the murder weapon in his possession.
“Like a lamb into a slaughterhouse my livelihood was totally disrupted due to false statements prepared by officers (names provided), all of whom have an obligation to enforce the law.”
Bart also sought answers to a number of questions, including the changing of some members of the jury during his trial.
“How can I ever renew my trust in the #1 helpers of this country? ...Individuals who took an oath to uphold the mandate. How am I to live by governing laws of my beloved native that has failed me? What about my rights? Am I not entitled to a fair trial? Centered on a big conspiracy I cling to the remaining sanity that I possess I often ask myself questions that I would never be able to answer. Quest ions such as why was it a problem that the jurors that have no affiliation with me were changed? Why is it that the judge that tried my case was not the same judge that sentences me? How could a creditable individual condemn an individual known to have an indelible impression to most persons I grew up with? How do all the parties involved in my unlawful incarceration stomach such an act?”
He closed by saying: “Not even eternal damnation could equate to depredation of my livelihood and ego.”
At approximately 9:20 p.m. on April 6, 2011, while Williams was engaged in a card game with three others in an empty yard through an alley In Buckley’s Estate, a number of shots were fired in their direction and he was struck multiple times and died at the scene.
The three others, including a female, escaped unscathed.
On Sunday, April 10, 2011, police arrested Bart and on the following day they arrested his older brother, Kelroy ‘C-Face’ Hazel, both of whom were subsequently charged with murder and remanded at Her Majesty’s Prison.
The case against Hazel was dismissed on no case submission in 2015.
However, after four trials, a jury on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 took just one hour to return a unanimous guilty verdict against Bart.
That trial began on Monday, July 3, 2017 in which police officers testified that Bart had confessed and gave a statement under caution that he had not intended to shoot Williams, but one of the others who were playing cards with him.
However, defence counsel Chesley Hamilton refuted the police officers’ testimony and put forth a case that the confession statement was a fabrication concocted by them.
Bart said he had indeed given a statement to the police, in which he stated that he knew nothing regarding Williams’ death. He also stated that details of the statement to which the police officers claimed he gave and signed to were false.
This media house was also told that the physical statement was never produced as evidence in court.
Also called to take the stand among the prosecution’s witnesses were the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Williams and the female who was present when the incident occurred.
In his closing statement, the special prosecutor, Queen’s Counsel Dane Hamilton, pointed out that the defence did not dispute Bart has signed the statement and that the details in the document were supported by the account given by the witness who was present when Williams was shot.
Chesley Hamilton however told the jury that the prosecution did not present any physical or forensic evidence that connected his client to the crime. And that at times the witness testimonies had conflicted with details in the alleged statement of the accused.
Following the guilty verdict, defence counsel had requested a pre-sentencing psychiatric report and also a social inquiry report, to which the trial judge, Justice Marlene Carter agreed to and had deferred sentencing to a date to be fixed on receipt of the reports.
The sentencing hearing was on Monday, July 10, 2017 not before Justice Carter but Resident High Court Judge Justice Trevor Waqrde Q.C., who sentenced Bart to life imprisonment.
Since then, Jahari Bart had filed an appeal against the conviction and sentence, according to his mother.
