By Robert Andre Emmanuel
The second day of the Kelly Friday murder trial began in similar fashion to the first, with each of the three witnesses called by the prosecution yesterday testifying to some of the events leading up to the death of 50-year-old Selwyn Mannix.
Walter Martin, 65, was the first to take to the stand on Thursday, telling the court that he was doing some cleaning a short distance away when his headphones fell, and he began to hear a scuffle coming from the direction of where Mannix and Friday were.
From there, he reportedly saw Mannix beat Friday about the body with a wattle stick while saying “you tief my fish and muh done go to the station with police”.
Martin said Friday was trying to escape his uncle’s strikes when he fell. He described Mannix as telling Friday to “stand up man, muh nah done with you yet, lemme give you one more of this wattle yah”.
Martin said that the stick broke during the altercation at Point Wharf and Mannix went back for another wattle to continue the beating.
At some point, the witness described Friday—knife already in his hand—as swinging his arm in the direction of Mannix, but missing.
Martin then said that Mannix tried to hit Friday with the wattle stick again but missed. Then, at some point, he lost balance and hit himself on the leg with the stick which then flew out of his hand.
The witness said that Friday then stabbed Mannix in the side, turned him on his back, got on top of Mannix, and stabbed him in his abdomen.
In an unusual turn of events, Martin got up from the witness box to demonstrate Mannix’s position on the ground, by lying down on the courtroom floor on his side, showing where exactly Mannix was stabbed by Friday, while he was still trying to reach for the wattle.
The witness, in cross examination, said that while he was 50 to 60 feet away from the incident, he couldn’t intervene because he’d had surgery on one of his legs, so he essentially resigned himself to witnessing the death of Mannix, whom he earlier described as a close friend.
Then at some point, Martin said that a ‘Mr Newton’, who is presumed to be ‘Comrade Leader’ who was also on the scene, fired a gunshot in the air and began to tie up Friday.
Martin, in his testimony to the court, said that both Mannix and Friday were not usually violent people, describing Friday in particular as a quiet person.
Tyson Sylvester, a cargo master, was the fourth witness to take the stand since the trial began on Wednesday.
Sylvester said he was coming back to Antigua from Barbuda via the same boat that the second witness on Wednesday was on.
Sylvester said that, at the time, he was dealing with an issue with his vehicle when he heard an argument at the wharf.
He said that he saw Mannix beating Friday at least 20 times, while Friday was begging his uncle for mercy.
Sylvester corroborated much of the other previous witnesses’ testimony, including that Friday was on top of Mannix throwing what he believed to be punches at the time.
At some point after the incident, Sylvester told the court that he walked up to Mannix, still on the ground bleeding, told him to “pray”, then reportedly went back to his vehicle.
The last witness yesterday was fisherman, Franklyn Matthew, who was washing the filter of his boat when he witnessed the situation.
Matthew said he saw that Friday was bleeding profusely from his arm after the incident which Matthew bandaged with his shirt.
He also noticed numerous other bruises.
The witness described the feeling of being beaten by a wattle, saying he had been beaten as a child by his grandmother with the stick.
“I am accustomed to being beaten with a wattle stick, and it is the hardest blow you ever could’ve gotten,” Matthew expressed.
The court case continues today at 10am.