287 / 494
286
DSP Tabannah, on his part, said “we entered about
5:45 p.m.”.
(iii)
Whereas Maj. Cheverria saw two dead bodies in the sector,
somewhere on Chang Avenue, DSP Tabannah testified that
his men indicated to him that they saw two dead bodies as
they entered Tivoli Gardens. “We did not get close to the
bodies at that time because of the heavy gunfire.”
(iv)
DSP Tabannah said that he did not think that the JDF was in
control of the sector because of the heavy gunfire and “on
what I saw they had not established a cordon”. This
evidence is in conflict with Maj. Cheverria’s and, indeed,
Lt. Col. Sewell’s (
supra
).
(v)
In para.18 of his witness statement, Maj. Cheverria stated:
“At the end of the initial phase, members of
the JCF then organised themselves into search
teams and began conducting house-to-house
searches of the area of operation.”
10.37.
DSP. Tabannah, in his evidence on 2 November 2015, described
para.18 of Maj. Cheverria’s witness statement as untrue. Maj. Cheverria insisted
that his statement was true and explained that “the initial phase” ended about
3.30 p.m. and the JCF began searching about 4.00 p.m. He was confident of the
timelines because it was “standard procedure before going on an operation” to
have watches synchronised. Maj. Dixon told the Enquiry that he had
synchronised the watches of all the commanders on the morning of 24 May.
DSP Warren Turner
10.38.
DSP Turner was the JCF counterpart of Maj. Kennedy. There were
material discrepancies in the evidence of these two witnesses. – see (i) to (iii)
infra
.