Calypso queen walks free after judge rules no case to answer

Former calypso monarch Aziza Kebret Tsgaye Clarke walked free on Thursday after the No. 5 Supreme Court found she had no case to answer to a charge of assisting an offender.

Describing the evidence of the police investigators in the case as “manifestly unreliable and poor”, Justice Pamela Beckles informed Clarke that she was free to go after ruling that the prosecution had failed to satisfy the ingredients of the charge following a no-case submission from the defence.

Clarke, from Bonnetts, Brittons Hill, St Michael, broke down in tears in the dock of the No. 5 Supreme Court on Thursday morning after Justice Beckles instructed the jury of six women and three men to return a not-guilty verdict in the matter.

She had been charged that, knowing or believing Hakeem Stuart had committed murder or some other arrestable offence, she assisted him by transporting him from Briar Hall to Graeme Hall, Christ Church — an act intended to impede his lawful apprehension on March 21, 2019.

After the State, led by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Krystal Delaney and Senior State Counsel Kevin Forde, closed its case earlier this week, Clarke’s legal team of senior counsels Michael Lashley, Angella Mitchell-Gittens, and defence attorney Sade Harris made a no-case submission arguing that the State had failed to provide any evidence that their client had any knowledge of Stuart’s actions.

Justice Beckles ruled in favour of the defence, stating: “Having reviewed all the evidence before the court and all the submissions, I conclude that the case against the accused is not very thin. It is less than thin! And that even taken the bits of circumstantial evidence at their highest, and if all of the evidence for the prosecution was accepted and all inferences most favourable to the prosecution which are reasonably inferred were drawn, a reasonable jury properly directed could not reach the conclusion of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  

“I am therefore of the view that the case against the accused of assisting an offender is not sufficient to go to the jury, and it is unsafe to do so. And I must make clear at this stage that it is not only the lack of evidence to prove an essential element of the offence which causes this submission to succeed, but the evidence of the investigating officers in this case was manifestly unreliable and poor and was so discredited upon cross-examination that they failed to make up the case for the prosecution. I therefore uphold the submission of the defence that the accused has no case to answer.”

Speaking to the media outside the Supreme Court Complex, Clarke thanked those who supported her.

She said: “I don’t really have much to say. I just want to thank God, thank my lawyers, thank the judge and the jury and everybody who supported me on this journey. It wasn’t much people, but I am thankful for the few I had. God is the greatest.”