After spending over two years on remand, accused of illegally having a firearm and ammunition, Akili Samba Layne walked out of the High Court a free man after his attorney made a successful no-case submission on his behalf.
“It feels very wonderful to be free after 29 months in prison wrongfully charged. I had been accused of a firearm that I knew nothing about. Even though I tried to let the police know that it wasn’t mine from the beginning, they still insisted that it belonged to me,” he told the media while walking out of the Henry Forde and David Simmons Complex in Coleridge Street.
Saying that justice had been done in the case, defence attorney Martie Garnes lamented the delay, “especially in circumstances where the statements would have been ready three months after the initial contact with the accused.”
“It is truly regrettable, but I am just glad that I was able to demonstrate to the court that this matter ought not to go on and that my client is not guilty, and is innocent, as I would have said from the very beginning,” the attorney stated.
Layne, of Maxwell, Christ Church, had been on trial before a nine-member jury and Madam Justice Donna Babb-Agard for almost four weeks, charged that on January 10, 2023, he had a .40 calibre Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistol without a valid licence, and 10 rounds of ammunition without a valid permit.
After Principal State Counsel Olivia Davis closed the State’s case in the No. 4A Supreme Court, the judge heard arguments from the prosecution and Garnes, before ruling in favour of the defence.
In his submissions, Garnes argued, among other things, that the State failed to prove that the firearm and ammunition were in Layne’s possession at any time, did not present any witnesses to state that the gun and bullets had been in his custody, or any DNA or fingerprint evidence linking him to the charges.
Garnes also argued that while the State’s case had been built on a police officer’s testimony of hearing a metallic object hitting the ground, the police witness had admitted to the court he never saw the firearm in Layne’s hand and that the gun was found on the ground under a licence plate in the open backyard of a house.
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