A former roommate of one of the two men accused of murdering a drug dealer told a B.C. Supreme Court justice that Babak Najafi-Chaghabouri described the murder to him in their North Vancouver apartment.
Ali Reza Alamdari, 60, testified that he came back from a doctor's appointment one day in February 2009 to find Najafi-Chaghabouri sitting by himself in their apartment.
"He was pale and his hands were trembling," Alamdari testified through a Farsi interpreter. "Looking at his face I knew something has happened."
Alamdari is one of the final Crown witnesses in the trial of Najafi-Chaghabouri, 27, and Charles Anthony Leslie, 31, who are both on trial before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies for the murder of Ronak "Ronny" Wagad, whose body was discovered in the bush up a logging road near Chilliwack on July 8, 2009.
Alamdari said Najafi-Chaghabouri told him about how he and two other men - including one he knew as "Kevin" but identified as Leslie in the courtroom - lured another drug dealer to a meeting where, "They beat him and put him in the trunk of a car. They took him to a place in Chilliwack."
Alamdari said Najafi-Chaghabouri told him at one point the man in the trunk tried to escape but "I chased him and caught him."
Najafi-Chaghabouri told him they took the man to a place near a river, said Alamdari, where Najafi-Chaghabouri and "Kevin" debated who would be the new drug boss and who would kill their victim.
Najafi-Chaghabouri told him he handed Kevin an axe, said Alamdari, "and tells him 'Kill him. You are the boss or I am.'"
But Najafi-Chaghabouri told him Kevin couldn't do it, said Alamdari.
"Eventually he says 'Give me the axe.' He takes the axe and he hits that person in the head and says 'This is the boss,'" said Alamdari.
Before the killing, "Kevin was telling him, 'Let's not kill him,'" said Alamdari. "But he did it and he told me himself."
"He said, 'I hit the man in the head with the axe. His brain just sputtered out.' That's what he told me."
Alamdari gave his dramatic testimony before Justice Barry Davies, who is hearing the case without a jury. Much of the testimony was given in a voir dire - held to determine if the evidence can be admitted as part of the trial.
After the conversation, which took place in the two men's apartment on 20th Street in North Vancouver, Najafi-Chaghabouri asked for help to clean up a vehicle, said Alamdari. The two men went outside, where Najafi-Chaghabouri started cleaning the car.
Asked by prosecutor David Butcher if he knew who the car belonged to, Alamdari replied, "It belonged to the man who died."
"That night I left and went walking the street thinking to myself, 'What's happened?'" said Alamdari.
Later, when he returned to the apartment, "Kevin" was there, he said.
"He said Babak was crazy to have told you this," said Alamdari. "'I'll kill you unless you promise not to say anything.'"
"But later, they planned to kill me," said Alamdari.
In cross-examination, Najafi-Chaghabouri's defence lawyer Darcy Lawrence questioned Alamdari's credibility and his version of the conversation, asking Alamdari about his criminal record, his associations with various North Vancouver drug dealers and the fact he had taken methadone before returning to the apartment that day.
"When you got back to your apartment you were still feeling the effects of methadone weren't you?" asked Lawrence.
"Isn't it true that when you take your medicine you wouldn't know if there was an earthquake or if an atom bomb exploded? Isn't that true?" Lawrence continued, quoting from a statement Alamdari made to police.
"I haven't said anything like that. That's fabricated," said Alamdari, prompting Lawrence to play an audiotape of the police interview in Farsi. The court translator repeated the quote.
Lawrence suggested to Alamdari that he'd made up more detail about the conversation than actually took place.
"I'm going to suggest that all you remember is a story about a man being killed with an axe and that the man was killed by the river in Chilliwack," said Lawrence.
"And that he himself did it," added Alamdari.
"I'm going to suggest to you that he never told you he did it or who did it," said Lawrence. "You invented this story because you hate Tony and you're committed to seeing he spends the rest of his life in jail. Isn't that true?" he asked.
Alamdari began his testimony Nov. 25. At the request of Butcher, however, the judge ordered an unusual temporary publication ban that prevented any details being made public until after Alamdari was finished on the witness stand on Tuesday.
Earlier in the trial, Davies heard testimony from star witness Travis Winterlik, who told the judge he was with Leslie and Najafi-Chaghabouri when Wagad was killed. Winterlik testified Najafi-Chaghabouri stood over him after the killing and threatened to chop him up if he ever told.
Both Winterlik and a former girlfriend of Leslie's, Alicia Kellogg, told the judge about how the men were involved in drug dealing together and how Leslie harboured a secret hatred of Wagad for sleeping with an exgirlfriend and taking money from him.
The trial continues.
