Handwriting expert gives evidence in Kartel trial....."All the sheets exhibit the same characteristics. In my opinion they were written by one and the same person,"

A handwriting expert testified in the Vybz Kartel murder trial in the High Court downtown Kingston yesterday that a letter which is about to be introduced into evidence by the defence was in fact written by the prosecution's star witness.

Retired Senior Superintendent Carl Major, who was in charge of the Questioned Document section of the Government Forensic Laboratory, had been asked by defence attorney Tom Tavares-Finson to examine a photocopy of a statement given to the police by the prosecution's star witness and compare the handwriting to a letter the defence claims was written by the witness and sent to the Office of the Public Defender.

In the early days of the trial, Tavares-Finson had suggested to the witness that he had written the letter claiming he was forced by the police to give evidence and that he had in fact seen Clive 'Lizard' Williams after the night of August 16, 2011 when police accuse the five men of beating him to death.

The witness had vehemently denied writing any such letter.

Tavares-Finson and lead prosecutor Jeremy Taylor locked horns when Tavares-Finson attempted to enter the letter into evidence but Taylor objected on the grounds that the attorney was using the wrong method to introduce the exhibit. more