Williams, Matthew not guilty of “Attempted murder”

By Terresa McCall
Reporter-SKNVibes

Wayne Matthew

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AFTER almost three hours of deliberations, a three-man/nine woman jury found Maluska Williams and Wayne Matthew “not guilty” of attempting to murder Defence Force Corporal Joseph Bergan, but convicted them of the other three charges for which they were tried.

The men, who were jointly accused of Friday, December 2, 2005 offences of “possession of a firearm to aid in the commission of a felony”, “robbery”, “wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm” and “attempted murder” sat through an almost two-week trial which began on Monday, February 25, 2008.

On the day in question, Corporal Bergan was shot in the neck by perpetrator(s) dressed in black clothing and fully masked while in Lodge Village at Newton’s Supermarket providing escort to one of CEMACO’s delivery trucks.

The jury, day after day, listened to the evidences presented by a number of witnesses and at about 6:00 last evening, they retired for deliberations. Just a couple of minutes before the hour of 9:00, the jury was called back to the courtroom and the verdict was read.

SKNVibes was amongst those who listened attentively as the verdicts were read. On the “attempted murder” charge, the jury unanimously found that both men were not guilty.  On the charge of “possession of a firearm to aid in the commission of a felony”, the jury unanimously found both men to be guilty, while on the count of “robbery” however, the jury was separated 10/2 but the verdict was guilty as well. Relative to the charge of “wounding with intent”, again separated 10/2, the jury found the men to be guilty as charged.

Maluska Williams

During the case, in excess of 12 prosecution witnesses were called including Joseph Bergan; Maluska Williams’ brother, Reese Williams; investigator in the case, Sgt. Smithen; Kishma Johnson; Danala ‘Danny’ Richards, the cashier that was on the CEMACO truck for which Bergan was providing security at the time of the incident; Verlyn Chiverton, driver of the said CEMACO truck; and Raphael York, the individual who first provided assistance to Bergan after he was shot.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, both accused stood in the witness box and gave accounts of the incident and or circumstances surrounding it.

Williams told the court that he, in essence, lied in a statement he gave to the police after he was arrested and charged with the crime. He said that was done because he, “was offered a deal” to incriminate Matthew and be given immunity against prosecution. In the statement, Williams spoke of how Matthew shot the soldier and fled the scene, after which, he (Williams) took the soldier’s weapon from him. He said that this and other parts of his statement were false. He also claimed that he was merely the lookout man, but abandoned his post even before the CEMACO truck would have arrived.

~~Adz:Left~~Matthew, however, in his testimony, said he had no idea where he was on Friday, December 2, 2005 between the hours of 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.  He too maintains that he had nothing to do with the incident.

The convicted men opted not to comment after the verdicts were read, but were informed by His Lordship Justice Francis Belle that they are scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday  at 9:00 in the morning.