Nearly eight years after Cleveland Smith was fatally shot in Ackee Walk, St Andrew, the murder trial of Dancehall entertainer Munga Honorable and his co-accused Sheridan Gordon finally kicked off Monday at the Home Circuit Court in Kingston. The first thing the prosecution did was put a witness on the stand who told the court she watched both men fire bullets into Smith’s body.
The witness’s account was direct and detailed. She testified that after the shooting, Smith lay motionless on the ground next to the bicycle he had been riding — a detail that paints a pretty specific picture of what she claims to have seen.
Munga, whose real name is Damian Rhoden, has been tied to this case since 2017, when Smith was shot at an entertainment event and later died at the Kingston Public Hospital. Smith was reportedly a relative of fellow Dancehall entertainer Mr Vegas, which added another layer to an already complicated situation.
The history between Munga and the victim runs deeper than just that night. Reports have circulated that Smith chopped Munga in 2015, though Smith’s relatives have insisted the two had settled their differences well before the shooting took place. Whether the court will treat that backstory as relevant remains to be seen, but it’s the kind of context that tends to hang over a case.
One of the more dramatic moments Monday had nothing to do with testimony. Both Munga and Gordon had their bail revoked ahead of the lunch break, and observers in the courtroom watched as the two men were escorted out in handcuffs by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. It was a tense scene that underscored just how high the stakes are.
Defence attorney Christopher Townsend moved quickly after the break, appealing to the judge to reinstate bail and pointing out that both men had originally been granted bail shortly after Smith’s death back in 2017. The application worked — bail was extended, at least until Thursday.
Getting to this point hasn’t been straightforward. The case has dragged on for years, with delays tied in part to witnesses migrating, which created real uncertainty about whether the trial would ever get off the ground. Monday’s opening was, by that measure, a long time coming.
The prosecution is now building its case around eyewitness testimony, which is often the most contested type of evidence in Jamaican courtrooms. Defence teams routinely challenge the reliability and circumstances of such accounts, so how Townsend handles cross-examination of this first witness could set the tone for everything that follows.
Smith’s family, meanwhile, has been waiting nearly a decade for this process to play out. The trial is now live, bail is back in place until Thursday, and the next round of proceedings is already on the calendar.
