A military uniform recovered at the scene of senior Customs official Nigel Christian’s murder could not have been purchased by any member of the public — meaning it had to have originated from within the Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force itself, a senior officer confirmed in court Wednesday.

The commandant of the Antigua and Barbuda National Cadet Corps made the admission under cross-examination on the fourteenth day of the murder trial of Saleim Harrigan, Wayne Thomas and Lasean Bully, the three men accused of abducting and killing Christian in July 2020.

Taking the stand, the commandant told the court that among two military-style uniforms recovered at Perry Bay, one was genuine — a medium-sized digital camouflage uniform with the letters ABDF woven directly into the fabric. He said the uniform was introduced in 2018 and is unique to Antigua and Barbuda. The second, larger uniform was a convincing fake — lighter in colour, though not in a way the average person would notice at a glance.

The critical point, confirmed without hesitation, was that the real uniform could not have been bought. There is no civilian avenue through which it can be obtained. It had to have come from within the defence force.

The commandant told the court he was sent by the Chief of Defence to examine the items at the police station in July 2020, when he was captain in charge of clothing and quartering. He explained that uniforms are not issued to individual soldiers but to units, with the storeroom tracking what leaves — though what happens to those uniforms once they reach units falls outside his oversight.

He acknowledged he did not know whether an administrative inspection was conducted after the uniform was discovered at the murder scene, nor whether any steps were taken to determine how it went missing. When pressed on whether it concerned the defence force that one of its uniforms had turned up at a murder scene, he said he personally had not been alarmed at the time — but conceded he is concerned now, knowing the full circumstances.

He confirmed an investigation into the units had been conducted in connection with the matter, but said he was unaware of its findings. He also revealed that while soldiers are advised to write their names inside their uniforms, the genuine uniform recovered bore no name — and though it appeared new, he could not say definitively whether it had been worn.

The testimony came as the trial also heard continued cross-examination of a constable from the Forensic Evidence Recovery Unit, whose handling of evidence drew sharp scrutiny from defence attorneys.

Attorneys pressed her on the absence of tire track documentation, the discarding of examination paper placed beneath the victim’s truck — which they argued could have held crucial trace evidence — and the fact that recovered clothing items were hung to dry in a shared space, potentially allowing DNA transfer between garments. She acknowledged that items appeared to be touching in photographs, that she kept no record of gloves used during evidence collection, and that she could not confirm whether gunshot residue testing had been carried out on the clothing.

She further conceded that she did not know whether anyone had accessed the drying room while items were stored there.

Sergeant O’Garro, the crime scene manager, began his testimony at day’s end, describing his arrival at the Thibou’s crime scene under poor lighting conditions. He outlined items recovered from the scene and from Christian’s abandoned truck in Cassada Gardens — found with the key still in the ignition and containing documents, a wallet, a laptop charger and a sealed box wrapped in duct tape. His evidence continues Thursday.

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Harrigan, Thomas and Bully are accused of abducting Christian from his McKinnons home on July 10, 2020 and shooting him dead on a dirt road in Thibou’s that afternoon. Two of the men are alleged to have worn ABDF camouflage during the abduction — a detail first raised by Christian’s mother, who told the court she watched through her kitchen window as masked men in military clothing forced her son away at gunpoint. Christian was a senior Customs official who had been part of a team investigating Customs fraud at the time of his death.