Justin Felix was yesterday freed of the 2008 murder of Paul Austin, after Justice Franklyn Holder upheld a no-case submission.
Felix, of Oronoque Drive, Retrieve, Linden, was accused of murdering Austin on July 13, 2008, at the Kara Kara Bridge at Mackenzie.
Felix, who carried Austin to Mackenzie after he was shot, had told the police that he was standing with Austin when two men came up to them and one shot at Austin. He said the men rode away on bicycles.
Defence attorney Glenn Hanoman made a no-case submission and it was upheld by Justice Holder yesterday in the High Court. Felix was subsequently set free.
On Monday, taxi driver Trevor Graham testified that Felix had flagged down his vehicle and asked him to help transport a man to the Mackenzie Hospital. He said he was passing a GuyOil gas station when he saw a man at the side of road, flagging him down. He said he had almost passed when the man called out his name.
Graham said he saw Felix and the man quickly related to him that someone had just gotten shot.
He said it took them about 10 minutes to get to the hospital and when they arrived, he got out of his car and stood at the side as a porter lifted the “lifeless” body of Austin onto a trolley.
He added that he was about to leave when Felix stopped him and asked for a drop. It was on their way back from the hospital that Graham said he asked Felix what had happened to the man. He said the young man told him that he had heard a gunshot and when he ran out he saw his friend holding his stomach and a man jumping onto a bicycle and riding away.
“I told him to go to the station and make a report,” he said.
Last week, a police witness had testified that Felix told him that his gun had accidently went off and killed Austin.
