Witness says Blackman ordered death of own gang members

A FORMER top commander in the One Don Gang yesterday testified that reputed leader Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan had reportedly given orders for some of the gang members to be executed.

The former gangster, the second top-tier member to be testifying before the Home Circuit Court, spoke about two alleged gang members, who are defendants in the matter, whom the reputed leader had wanted dead.

“On one occasion, Blackman send ‘Smoky’ and ‘Ezi’ (defendant Marco Miller) to kill ‘Squeeze Eye’ (defendant Jahzeel Blake) because him say Squeeze Eye fi dead and him want dem fi kill him,” the witness testified, saying that this happened in 2017.

When asked how he was privy to that information, the witness said that he was present when Blackman instructed another member, who was the driver, to go and pick up the two men.

The witness, however, did not say why the reputed leader had wanted Squeeze Eye dead and if the alleged members had actually complied with Blackman’s alleged order.

The self-confessed ex-member, who claimed he was the second in command and was very close to Blackman, said the reputed leader had also wanted to kill defendant Chevoy Evans, who goes by the name ‘Kartel’.

“Blackman said he wanted to kill him because he said he was an informer,” the witness recalled.

The witness later shared that Kartel, who he said was always armed, had also found himself in Blackman’s bad book after he wasted some of the gang’s ammunition.

“… On New Year’s Eve, him fire dem out and only three left back, and Blackman say him a go buy dem back and him and ‘Brain’ fi work it out,” the ex-gangster recalled.

The second witness, who is is testifying via video link, disclosed on Thursday that the gang had its own ‘criminal’ court in the communities of Rivoli and Waterloo Lane in Spanish Town, St Catherine, before which it would haul delinquent members and those who had been branded as “informers”.

“If you do something wrong, that’s the court that they try you in. And if you are part of the gang and yuh name a call up, and if Blackman send fi you and if yuh don’t go yourself, others will come for you and dem beat yuh.

“And, if everybody vote fi you dead, dat mean seh dem a go kill yuh, but at the end of the day, it’s all up to Blackman,” he had shared.

“At one point, I had to beg for Stenneth (defendant Michael Whitley),” the witness further claimed while describing Stenneth as a foot soldier and a shooter.

The witness, who said he was one of the gang’s drivers and had joined the gang in 2016, also testified that the gang had a lot of AK-47 weapons.

The prosecution witness will resume his evidence-in-chief on Monday.

The reputed leader and 32 other alleged gang members are being tried on an indictment with 25 counts under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act.