A man accused of two counts of murder has denied being the “armourer” for a West End gang.

“I did hold weapons for two persons; no more than that,” Christoph Duerr, 26, told the Supreme Court. “They used them to protect themselves.”

He told defence lawyer Larry Mussenden that he did not know the two people said by the Crown to have carried out the gun murders of Ricco Furbert and Haile Outerbridge. The two men were shot dead in the Belvin’s Variety store on Happy Valley Road, Pembroke, on the night of January 23, 2013.

Mr Duerr, who is charged with premeditated murder, has been portrayed by the prosecution as a knowing accomplice who stored and supplied the murder weapon. Le-Veck Roberts, 21, from Warwick, is also charged with two counts of premeditated murde

Mr Duerr admitted holding firearms and ammunition for two people in his neighbourhood who he referred to as “Man A” and “Man B” — both of whom he steadfastly refused to identify by name despite repeated questions.

He admitted that in the year prior to the shooting he had been given four separate firearms on different occasions, and he had been told after the fact that the weapons had been used in “multiple” murders.

He told the court that he was handed one firearm on the same evening that Lorenzo Stovell was shot dead, and was given a bag with three firearms the day after Mr Furbert and Mr Outerbridge were murdered.

The court has heard that two firearms were still in his possession when Police surrounded his Boaz Island home in advance of a raid, but Mr Duerr was able to evade officers and stash the weapons before turning himself in the next day. While he has already pleaded guilty to possessing the firearms and ammunition, he has called upon the jury to find him not guilty of murder.

As the trial continued yesterday, Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney referred to a forensic report from United States DNA expert Candy Zuleger, which found Mr Duerr’s DNA on live rounds and spent casings seized by Police in the possession of Terry Thomas, along with the firearm used in the double murder.

While he said he only agreed to hold the weapons because he was afraid, he accepted that he did not tell officers he was afraid during a Police interview in May of 2013. On that occasion, he told officers that he was asked to hold the weapons because they knew him from Woody’s Bar and he was not involved in gang activity.

“The day after the Belvin’s murders, you got three firearms — a black revolver .38, a black 9mm and a silver 9mm,” the prosecutor told him, to which Mr Duerr agreed.

The silver weapon was used in the February 4, 2011 murder of Colford Ferguson, Mr Mahoney said, as well as the September 23, 2012 shooting of Lorenzo Stovell.

“Up to January 2013, you were aware that the firearms that passed through your hands were used to kill people,” Mr Mahoney told him, but Mr Duerr denied this, saying he was only told about the weapon’s history after officers raided his house. He also told the court that he had been given details about the Belvin’s shooting from Man A — including that all three firearms had been taken but only one had been discharged — but that Man A had not been the gunman. He said he was also told that one of the weapons had problems firing.

Mr Mahoney suggested that Mr Duerr was the “armourer” for the west end gang, saying: “You not only kept the weapons, you cleaned and loaded them. The firearm that was used at Belvin’s, you were the one who put the bullets in the gun.

“You may not have known the specific target, but you knew what they were going out there for.”

Mr Duerr replied: “I never had the gun before the Belvin’s shooting.”

Mr Mahoney continued: “You knew that you played a critical role in keeping these firearms that caused the death of two men at Belvin’s. That’s the reason why at all costs you tried to make sure that gun was never found by Police.”

The trial continues.