By Kimone Witter
A Police Constable was on Thursday acquitted of murder in the St. Ann Circuit Court, 13 years after he was charged.
Ransford Wisdom was freed by a seven-member jury, which deliberated for 30 minutes.
The case lasted over six weeks before High Court Judge, Justice Georgiana Fraser.
Constable Wisdom was accused of fatally shooting a man during an attack on the evening of August 18, 2010 in Pear Tree Bottom.
The cop reportedly left his post at the Runaway Bay Police Station to purchase food with a female companion.
While enroute, the vehicle developed mechanical problems. Constable Wisdom said as he awaited assistance, he was attacked by two men, one of whom was armed with a machete.
He fired in the direction of the men, and left the scene without reporting the incident.
Investigations revealed that a man found with bullet wounds in the area had been shot by Constable Wisdom.
The man died at hospital.
Constable Wisdom was charged on October 8, 2010.
His attorney, Oswest Senior-Smith, said the case should not have gone to trial.
"Everything that came in terms of what unfolded came on the evidence of the accused man, and in those circumstances, I thought that the matter ought not to have gone on because there was no counternarrative, as it were, no evidence to refute what Mr. Wisdon had to say, even though the fatal wound was inflicted to the back of the deceased," he told Radio Jamaica News.
