By Tashieka Mair, Star Writer

WESTERN BUREAU

A 26-year-old customer sales representative, accused of killing a man he claimed stole compact discs and a T-shirt from a car he was driving, was remanded in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

Damian Clarke of Providence Heights in St. James is maintaining a not guilty plea to murder.

The court has learnt that he has given a caution statement to the police that a cousin of his committed the murder and that he was injured in the process of trying to save the deceased man's life.

He will be held in custody until September 26.

It is alleged that Clarke borrowed his girlfriend's car on August 6. He returned the following day and told her that someone had broken into the car and stolen several CDs and a polo T-shirt.

allegations

The deceased man's sister alleged that later that day, Clarke went to her house and told her, "Batta (the deceased) tief mi things dem an' if him no return dem, blood a go run."

Further allegations are that two days later, Clarke drove to Roosevelt Avenue in Montego Bay where he saw a man whom he asked for a tyre as his car had a puncture. The man told him to ask Batta, who had gone to a nearby shop, as he did not have one.

Clarke allegedly went to the shop and got into an argument with the victim. The man whom he had asked for the tyre alleges that Clarke hit the deceased and then placed him in the trunk of his car before driving away from the scene.

Further allegations are that he went home to his girlfriend the following day and told her that he had been robbed and stabbed in the left hand. Clarke was arrested on August 11. The car was also seized and police observed blood in the trunk.

His attorney, George Thomas, told RM Wilson Smith that his client had, on the night in question, got stabbed while trying to stop his cousin from stabbing the now deceased. He said that it was after he had sought medical attention at the hospital that his cousin called him to say that he (the cousin) had murdered the man and dumped his body at Bogue.

However, RM Wilson Smith was not persuaded by arguments presented and, as a result, denied bail. A post-mortem report as well as a statement, are still outstanding from the case file.