Anglin silent as case closes

(CNS): A West Bay man chose to remain silent last week in the face of the allegations that he was responsible for the murder of Swiss banker Fredrick Bise. As the crown closed its case against him, Chad Anglin declined to take the stand in his own defence and allowed his attorney, leading UK criminal barrister Jonathan Rees, QC, to speak for him. Simon Russell Flint, QC, another of London’s criminal legal experts, who put the case against Anglin on behalf of the director of public prosecutions, told the jury, as he summed up the evidence against Anglin Friday, that while some may find Bise’s homosexuality distasteful, he did not “deserve to be killed because of it". Rees said the crown had presented a case based on theory but not evidence.

Russell Flint described Bise’s murder as horrifically brutal and violent during an attack of such ferocity he sustained multiple face, head and neck fractures. The lawyer said that the evidence suggested Bise had been taken by surprise as there were no defence wounds and his semi-state of undress when his body was found suggested that he was “jumped” by his killers when he was at his most vulnerable, probably just after he had engaged in sex with one or both of his killers.

The crown claims Anglin is one of two men who killed Bise in a joint enterprise and the second man, also from West Bay, is due to be tried later this year.

In closing his case against Anglin, Russell Flint said he was the last person to be seen with Bise when the two men left Kelly’s bar on the night before Bise's body was found in Mount Pleasant in the back of his own burned out SUV. Anglin's DNA was found on cigarette butts found in and around Bise’s house and next to the Swiss banker’s torched vehicle. The attorney said Anglin had also confessed his crime in the form of a threat to a teenage runaway and he had lied to the police over and over about his connections to Bise as they disclosed their evidence agaisnt him. He had also destroyed all the clothes he was wearing that night in an effort to erase any forensic connection of the killing to him.

The crown put forward the possibility that the motive was a hate crime. They said Anglin had expressed his dislike of homosexuality to witnesses and to the police, not least because he had said he had been molested in the past by the man the crown says was also his co-killer in Bise’s murder while the two were staying at Caribbean Haven.

Russell Flint told the jury that on the evidence they could be sure that Anglin had killed Bise.

However, it was because of a lack of evidence that his legal adversary, Jonathan Rees, QC, argued the jury must acquit.

He said that the crown had presented a considerable amount of theory regarding Anglin’s possible guilt but not enough evidence.

“The picture here is far from clear,” he said. Rees told the jury that the crown could not say who killed Bise, when he was killed, why he was killed, where he was killed or what he was killed with, as he warned the twelve men and women that theory was no substitute for evidence.

“The court is no place for speculation,” he said.

Rees pointed to the risky behaviour displayed by Rees and noted by several witnesses. Pointing to what he called his “sexual appetite”, the lawyer said this led him into “situations that left him vulnerable”.

He said that under close scrutiny the crown’s case fell to the grownd as there was no evidence that Anglin had killed Bise.

“This was an unspeakable crime but it would only compound the tragedy if the wrong person was convicted,” he said, as he told the jury that Anglin was in their hands. He said the prosecution’s case had fallen short and their verdict must be not guilty.

Rees said there had not been enough evidence to charge Anglin when the police first investigated the crime in 2008 and there was still not enough evidence now.

The ten women and two men serving on the jury are scheduled to be directed in law by the presiding judge, Justice Alex Henderson, on Tuesday morning at 10am before being sent to deliberate on their verdict.