The Canadian socialite and estranged daughter-in-law of billionaire Lord Michael Ashcroft has insisted in an interview that she is not the coke-fuelled cop killer that the prevailing narrative has made of her.
“I’m definitely not a killer. And I’m set up. I am. I’m really. It’s such a small country, everyone here is afraid of Ashcroft,” Jasmine Hartin told TalkTV’s Piers Morgan. “They own the bank, they own the newspapers, they own the economy of this country.”
Hartin was charged last summer in the fatal shooting of Belize Police Superintendent Henry Jemmott, who was found dead in the water at a dock one night in May last year. He had a single gunshot wound behind his ear, police say, which also said the murder weapon was Jemmott’s service pistol.
The mother of two was found by the authorities on the same pier, spattered with blood, a spokesman said at the time.
She was charged with manslaughter by negligence in Jemmott’s death in June 2021. After being jailed and then released from a Belize facility notorious for its harsh conditions, Hartin was jailed again last month on suspicion that she hired hitmen in the killing of the Belize Police Commissioner and a local judge.
Excerpts from Hartin’s final interview, which was scheduled to air Sunday night, were reported by The Sun the previous Sunday. She didn’t deny shooting Jemmott, but said the incident was nothing more than a “tragic accident.”
“I don’t remember ever touching the trigger on the gun, so I don’t know what happened, to be honest,” she told Morgan. “I was trying to get the clip out and it just went off – I don’t remember ever touching the trigger. So I’m not sure if it was a faulty weapon or not.”
Hartin, 33, said that Jemmott, a friend she met and had a drink with that night, gave her his service pistol because he “thinked it was important for me to get my gun license because he thought.” , I need protection. ”
The socialite insisted she was trying to take out the gun’s clip when the gun accidentally went off. “Henry fell on me. I could see and feel blood,” she recalls. “Then I tried to wriggle out from under him. He started sliding into the water. I tried to catch him. He was a lot taller than me, so I couldn’t hold him.”
After his death, Jemmott’s family pushed for Hartin to be charged with murder. “My brother was shot behind the ear … execution style,” his sister Cherry told CBS News.
Speaking to Morgan, Hartin also addressed the “many different stories” about the details of the incident that have proliferated in recent months.
“I heard I executed him, that it was an attempted rape and that I defended myself. I heard I lured him there and it was Andrew [Ashcroft, Hartin’s estranged husband] that shot him,” she said.
“The truth of the matter is none of that. He was my friend,” Hartin added. “He didn’t attack me. I looked upon Henry as a protector.”
She also denied previous media reports depicting her as a drug-addicted party animal, linking it to her ongoing custody battle with Andrew over their 5-year-old twins.
“Obviously, if I were perceived as this wild cocaine-addicted party girl, it would be beneficial in the custody case, it would be beneficial in a number of ways,” Hartin said. “It’s just not true.”