R KELLY - WITNESS 'RECOGNISES FRIEND' IN R KELLY SEX VIDEO

WITNESS 'RECOGNISES FRIEND' IN R KELLY SEX VIDEO

A witness has claimed she recognises her friend in a video allegedly showing R Kelly involved in sex acts with an underage girl.

The I Believe I Can Fly star is accused of filming himself engaging in sex acts with a girl who prosecutors say may have been as young as 13 at the time.

And 24-year-old Simha Jamison has testified that she recognised her friend Roshona Landfair, 23, in the footage.

Ms Jamison said she and the alleged victim were friends for around ten years and often visited the singer at his recording studio and a Chicago basketball court.

In the second full day of the trial, she said Kelly - who Ms Landfair had said was her godfather - would often give Ms Landfair money, claiming he had given "no less than $100 (£50) and no more than $500 (£250)".

The 26-minute video allegedly showing Kelly and an underage girl was shown to jurors at the Chicago trial yesterday, with Cook County prosecutor Shauna Boliker warning the jury they would see footage of an "underage child performing sex acts that you have never seen before".

The R 'n' B star's legal team claims that the video depicts neither Kelly nor the alleged victim.

Kelly's lawyer Sam Adam Jr described the tape earlier this week as "at best a copy of a copy of a copy" and claimed that neither the FBI nor "a single witness" could conclusively identify his client as the man in the tape, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Furthermore, the alleged victim testified before a grand jury in 2002 that she was not the girl in the videotape and has refused to testify against Kelly.