THE key witness in a murder trial became the “prime suspect” for the killing when he was quizzed by defence barristers.
Colombian Luis Ortiz Morales – known as Fernando – has spent almost three weeks testifying before an Old Bailey jury.
The court has heard that Morales, 30, worked for a multi-million pound Colombian cocaine cartel known as The Organisation. The gang operated from two Kentish Town flats – in Arborfield, Peckwater Street, and Una House, Prince of Wales Road – as well as other addresses in north London.
Morales claimed that in the summer of 1997 he watched in horror as a kidnapped Colombian friend, Hernan Mora, 27, from Tottenham, north London, was strangled at a remote farm in Buckinghamshire.
But Morales was accused by defence barristers on Tuesday of being “in truth the killer” and of lying to cover up his guilty role by implicating others.
Hever Morales, 29 – no relation to the witness – and Zoran Vujovic, 42, of no fixed address, deny charges of murder and kidnapping. Morales lived with his girlfriend at Arborfield.
The trial continues.