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Girlfriend testifies in murder trial

Woman tells judge accused and victim were dealing crack, heroin

AN ex-girlfriend of one of two men accused of killing a drug dealer with a hatchet on Feb. 23, 2009 testified about how he had a fight on the phone with Ronak "Ronny" Wagad, telling him he was going to "get it" in the week before Wagad disappeared.

The woman also told the judge about how her thenboyfriend, Charles "Charlie" Anthony Leslie, returned to their apartment one night wearing a different set of clothes than he'd left in, telling her he had just "done somebody."

Alicia Kellogg, 29, testified Monday in the murder trial of Leslie, 31, and Babak "Tony" Najafi-Chaghabouri, 27, of North Vancouver, being heard in B.C. Supreme Court.

Leslie and Najafi-Chaghabouri are accused of murdering Wagad, whose body was discovered in the bush near Chilliwack on July 8, 2009.

Last month, Justice Barry Davies heard from key witness Travis Winterlik, who was with Leslie and Najafi-Chaghabouri on the day of the murder, although he told the judge he didn't witness the actual killing taking place.

Winterlik told Davies about how Wagad managed to escape from a car trunk and tried to run away before Najafi-Chaghabouri tackled him and shoved him back into the vehicle. He also described how after the killing, he and Leslie changed their clothes and burned their old ones in an industrial area near the Fraser River. Later, they went to Wagad's West End apartment and took drugs and money, he said.

On Monday, Kellogg told the judge that Leslie, Najafi-Chaghabouri and Wagad were all dealing crack and heroin in the months before Wagad disappeared.

Leslie and Wagad were working together, doing shifts on a dial-a-dope drug line, said Kellogg. But Leslie also harboured a secret hatred for Wagad, because he thought one of his exgirlfriends had slept with Wagad while he was in jail, she said.

Kellogg said Leslie was also angry at Wagad for undercutting him in a drug deal for "Special K" - a street name for the animal tranquiller ketamine, often used as a rave drug. "Charlie was yelling at Ronny on the phone in my apartment," she said, saying "'How could you undercut me? You're going to get it.'"

On the day Wagad disappeared, Kellogg said Leslie and Winterlik returned to the apartment she shared with Leslie late at night. Leslie was wearing different clothes than he'd been wearing earlier that day. "I asked him about his clothes, and he got mad at me," she said. Kellogg said Leslie grabbed her by the throat, telling her, "They'd just done somebody . . . and to stop being so bitchy."

Leslie and Winterlik later left again, returning with drugs, money, jewelry and other items. Under questioning from Crown counsel David Butcher, Kellogg said Leslie told her those things had been stolen from Wagad, "when they did what they did to him. When they pulled a move on Ron."

"What does that mean?" asked Butcher.

"Robbing somebody," said Kellogg.

Kellogg also testified about a trip she, Leslie and Najafi-Chaghabouri took to Squamish in the months after Wagad disappeared, where they dropped off a Jeep previously used by Wagad.

On the way back to Vancouver, "Tony threw the keys out the window into the water," she said.

Then Tony started talking "about how he couldn't believe how he jumped out of the trunk and started running down the highway."

She said Leslie's response was to turn up the music in the car.

The trial continues.

jseyd@nsnews.com