George Williams had his first meal in 50 years outside of prison walls on Wednesday after a St Catherine Circuit Court judge upheld a notice of abandonment in his murder case.
“Freedom time,” was all the grey-haired Williams could manage to say as he emerged from the courthouse flanked by his niece Pamela Green, brother Aldwin Jones, and lawyer Isat Buchanan.
The nolle prosequi submission made by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was expected as Williams had languished in the penal system for an “extraordinarily long time”, his attorney told The Gleaner.
Buchanan said that once all the parameters for the release were met, including a positive social assessment of Williams’ immediate family members, it would have been hard denying the eventual outcome.
Williams’ family endured jitters when independent psychiatric consultant Geoffrey Walcott appeared to differ with the assessment of Dr Myo Kyaw Oo, senior medical officer at Bellevue Hospital, on whether Williams was fit to plead.
