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It was a full day in the Belmopan Supreme Court today as the murder trial of Danny Mason and his 4 co-accused continued. The court session set-up was quite the same with Justice Antionette Moore presiding over today’s session and DPP Cheryl-Lynn Vidal prosecuting. The only new information coming out of today’s session is that Attorney Rachel Montejo will join Attorney Herbert Panton as the other defense attorney. Now, 4 witnesses testified. It started around 11:00 with one witness and continued into the afternoon session with 3 more. Courtney Weatherburne was in Belmopan and gives us an overview of today’s proceedings.

Courtney Weatherburne
"Its 3:00 pm and we are here at the Belmopan Supreme court. It's day 4 in the murder trial of Danny Mason and his 4 alleged accomplices. Now over the past couple days, including today’s session we have heard from about 10 prosecution witnesses who have shed light on a number of key details including the kidnapping of Pastors David Dodd and Pastor Wright, and the discovery of Pastor Llewellyn Lucas's head in the pan of Mason's truck"

"This morning we heard from a police Corporal, one of the officers who was at the Belmopan bar when that ghastly discovery was made on the night of July 15th 2016. The Cpl. went into detail about his interaction with Mason, the description of how the decapitated head was wrapped and secured, and how that later led to a search of Mason's home in Belmopan and his Farm on the Western Highway."

"When Mason arrived to court there was tight police presence but he and his crew seemed calm and unbothered throughout the court session, even chatting and sharing a few laughs with one another before the session started. Two more witnesses will testify this afternoon and this case is expected to continue well into April as at least two dozen more witnesses take the stand."

During a short break in the afternoon session, attorney Herbert Panton gave us an interview. He could not get into the details of the case but he had a lot to say about how his clients are being treated at prison. Here is more.

Herbert Panton - Attorney
"I went on Friday of last week before the case was to commence to meet with my clients only to be told that there is a protocol involved where I will only be able to speak to 3 then 1 and then 1, now bear in mind we have 269 pages of disclosure that was given on the initial occasion, that did not include none of the forensics evidence which I am sure is another 100 pages and for whatever reason I was told the only person that can override this is the head of the prison, Mr. Murrillo."

"I called Mr. Murrillo and Mr. Murrillo says this is the protocol I have in place and I will not remove it now the most fundamental of constitutional rights is the right of the accused to consult with his attorney in this instance they are charged jointly so that for lack of a better term, we need to get our ducks in a row and the only way we can do that is if the 5 of them along with their attorney sit down and mark out how the case to proceed."

"William Mason is on remand, he has not been convicted of anything, he is in super Max, he is locked down 23 hours of the day.That can’t be right, we had asked in the start of the trial for an adjournment to seek judicial review because the court need to direct the prison you can’t continue treating prisoners like that."

Today’s session ended at 4:40pm. The trial continues tomorrow.