VANCOUVER - Jose Hernandez is apparently no saint but his defence lawyer told a B.C. court Wednesday he's no kidnapper either.

Hernandez is one of five men charged with kidnapping and confining university student Graham McMynn two years ago in what the Crown alleges was an abortive attempt to extort a ransom from his wealthy family.

But lawyer Lyndsey Smith said key evidence the Crown relies on to include Hernandez in the kidnap gang is flawed and erodes the whole foundation of its case against him.

Joshua Ponicappo's lawyer also tried to remove important links in the chain of evidence alleging his client's involvement.

Dimitri Kontou challenged the credibility of a protected witness known only as Y and the testimony of McMynn himself.

McMynn was forced from his car on April 4, 2006, while he and his girlfriend drove to the University of British Columbia.

He was moved among three hideouts over eight days before a massive police investigation culminated in his rescue from a suburban Surrey home and the arrest of a half dozen people.

No ransom demand was ever received but McMynn testified the man he believed was the leader told him another group was paying them $100,000 for the kidnapping and handling negotiations with the family.

McMynn was blindfolded and tied up almost the whole time he was held, though in the final day he was simply confined to a bedroom of the home where he was rescued and told not to look at his captors.

He testified he was able to tell some of them apart by their voices, including the leader, one with a high-pitched voice and another with a Chinese accent.

In her final submission to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman, who is trying the case without a jury, Smith said the Crown's case against Hernandez largely hinges on the belief that he was the man with the high-pitched voice.

"It is my submission that that has not been proved, certainly not to the criminal standard and that a doubt based on reason exists," she said.

The Crown used the voice identification to link it to a kidnapper who got food and drove McMynn between two of the hideouts, which prosecutor Richard Cairns contends make him part of the crime.

Smith said that without the voice identification, the case against Hernandez becomes very thin and the remaining evidence can be explained away.

The testimony of two witnesses - friends of the accused kidnappers whose identities are protected by the court - is also shaky when it comes to Hernandez's involvement, she said.

McMynn never directly identified Hernandez's voice, Smith said. And while the emphasis at the trial has been on the high-pitched nature of the mystery voice, Smith said McMynn also told police the person had an accent.

Protected witness Y told police that Hernandez did not really have an accent.

"Jose was born in Manitoba," Smith said, citing Hernandez's booking sheet on arrest.

"Jose Hernandez, there's evidence before this court to conclude, has no accent. He speaks like a Canadian-born young man because that's what he is."

The doubt this raises "colours all of the rest of the evidence which (the Crown) proffered in support of the theory that Mr. Hernandez is the speaker overheard by Mr. McMynn," Smith told the court.

Kontou took direct aim at witness Y's testimony, suggesting the witness could lie creatively when it was suitable.

In an initial interview with police, neither Y nor Ponicappo were part of the kidnapping. Witness Y said they'd been at one of the hideout houses and were forced to stay when they learned McMynn was there.

Kontou said that later, the witness implicated Ponicappo and testified he'd provided details of the abduction and his role in it.

But that story fell apart under cross-examination, Kontou said.

The witness admitted to being stoned and drunk over much of the time of the kidnapping and couldn't be certain Ponicappo was describing his role or saying what others had done.

"This kind of evidence is neither sufficiently accurate nor reliable to support a conviction in my view," Kontou said.

And without Y's evidence, he said, the remaining circumstantial evidence can't support the inferences the Crown is making about Ponicappo's role.

Kontou also said McMynn's description of one of his abductors as a gun-toting white man wearing a red cap was untrustworthy because he admitted being focused on the man's pistol.

McMynn first told police the man wore a red vest, then a red jacket, then the cap.

Tran, his girlfriend, had no such recollection and a city worker who saw the kidnap car speed away described two front-seat occupants variously as Mexican or Latino, Kontou said.

Ponicappo was the only white member of the five men facing charges.

McMynn testified he overheard someone being referred to as "white boy," but never heard his voice and the Crown has linked the red-capped abductor to "white boy" and Ponicappo even though there's no evidence connecting those inferences, Kontou said.

Also charged are Anh The Nguyen and brothers Van Van Vu.

Silverman is scheduled to deliver his verdict Oct. 17.

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