A senior Mauritian police officer today read out in court the alleged confession made by one of the two men accused of murdering Michaela Harte on the Indian Ocean island last January while she was on honeymoon.
Chief Inspector Luciano Gerard of the Major Crime Investigation Team (MCIT) told the preliminary inquiry taking place at Mapou district court that Avinash Treebhoowoon formally signed a pre-written confession on January 13th last at MCIT headquarters.
Avinash Treebhoowoon (30) was a room cleaner at Legends Hotel in the fishing village of Grand Gaube where Ms Harte was honeymooning with husband John McAreavey.
He has subsequently claimed he only confessed to murdering Ms Harte because he was forced to do so by the police.
In the confession read in court Mr Treebhoowoon confirmed he and the second murder accused, Sandip Mooneea (41), had gone into room 1025 at the Legends Hotel to rob money from a wallet that was left on a dressing room table.
He continued that while in the room he heard someone using a card to open the door, which he thought was Ms Harte.
“A slim white lady with brown hair, wearing a blue bikini, shouted: ‘What are you doing here.’ She saw the wallet in my hand and she got angry. I tried to get out and she stopped me and I pushed her and she fell.
“Sandip went to her right and with one hand — I cannot say if it was his right or left — grabbed her by the throat to stop her screaming. With the other hand he pushed the lady.
“He kept pressing on her throat for one minute. He continued pressing the lady’s throat and she tried to fight him off but he carried on pressing until she could not breathe. She fell unconscious.
“And then Sandip and I lifted up the lady and we discussed it and we put her in the bath tub. We turned on the tap to get rid of any clues,” he said.
Further down in the confession he said: “We didn’t take the money from the wallet. By the time we had dumped the lady in the bath Sandip told me that we needed to kill her because she could report finding us and she would be able to remember us. We work in the hotel and we have a uniform.
“But if the lady hadn’t come in we would have taken the money. But I don’t know her and I had no reason to kill her. But because she found us we had to kill her.”
At the end of the statement Mr Treebhoowoon said he regretted what had happened and he asked for forgiveness.
Chief Insp Gerard went on to tell the court that before Mr Treebhoowoon voluntarily made his official statement on January 13th last, he cautioned and explained to him his constitutional rights in a language he understood, with his legal representative Ravi Rutnah present.
The recording of the statement began at 2.30 and ended at 4.45. After giving his statement Mr Treebhoowoon told police he would show them what transpired and where it happened.
Before leaving the MCIT offices Mr Treebhoowoon’s legal representatives were informed that their client had volunteered to take part in a reconstruction of the crime. The court was told Mr Rutnah and Mr Teeluckdlarry told the police to proceed with the reconstruction in their absence.
The court also heard Mr Treebhoowoon made a confession on January 12th without his counsel present, and this was noted in a police diary.
The magistrate presiding over the preliminary inquiry refused to allow Mr Treebhoowoon’s legal representatives to question the manner in which the police obtained his confession.
Magistrate Sheila Bonomally ruled that barrister Sanjeen Teeluckdharry’s line of questioning towards chief inspector Luciano Gerard of the Major Crime Investigation Team (MCIT) was “tricky” and amounted to “a trial within a trial” and as such was not permitted.
The preliminary inquiry into Ms Harte’s murder is designed to see if the police have gathered enough evidence against the two accused to send them forward to trial.
The inquiry continues on Friday.