A suspect turned state witness in the trial of murdered millionaire Dr Ravi Maharaj last week admitted, under cross-examination, that he has been receiving a monthly $3,700 stipend from the State in exchange for his testimony. However, Brian Worrell denied fabricating lies against murder accused Roger Greene in order to collect the stipend.
Worrell, who was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against Greene, was cross-examined for a second day by defence attorney Kwasi Bekoe as the murder trial continued before Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas in the San Fernando Second Criminal Court, last Friday.
Worrell, who described himself as a sufferer, admitted under cross-examination that since becoming a state witness his living condition had improved. He testified that the $3,700 monthly stipend he receives from the state is the most income he has ever earned in his life.
In his evidence in chief last Thursday, Worrell had claimed Greene confessed to him about killing the doctor.
Worrell claimed the day before Maharaj’s murder Greene hired him to go to Couva and also to be taken to La Romaine. He said Greene told him about a job he had to do at a house on Chacon Street. He said Greene told him the house had a vault which contained between $100,000 to $150,000.
Worrell claimed Greene also told him that lanate poison could be mixed in chicken and fed to dogs. He said Greene bought a box of fried chicken which he claimed was to feed a dog.
Maharaj, 63, was brutally beaten at his Chacon Street, San Fernando, home on January 11, 2006. He suffered several injuries, including a broken neck. The doctor’s dog was found dead at the back of his house.
Worrell, a Pleasantville straightener and PH driver, said around 2.05 am on the day Maharaj was murdered, he dropped Greene and his friend on Chacon Street. When he picked up Greene in Vistabella around 6 pm later that day, he said: “I said to Roger like the job you went to, like the man dead, that man dead in the house. You kill the man.
“He told me that man is an idol worshipper, a Hare Krishna worshipper, and he doh serve God and he say how I know the man dead.”
He said Greene also told him he “mash down” Maharaj’s statues and “throw down the idols on the ground.
“Roger said the man did not want to show them where the safe was and they take a icepick and chook up the man foot for the man to talk. Roger say the man tell them he will give them a cheque.”
In answer to state prosecutor Trevor Jones, Worrell said he did not receive the reward which was offered for information about Maharaj’s murder.
Bekoe, however, put to Worrell that he used the information Greene told him regarding questions he was asked by officer Simon, after he was first arrested in February 2006 in connection with the murder “to pick and fabricate” the story against Greene.
Worrell disagreed.
Bekoe added: “I am suggesting to you the stipend offered to you by the State gave you an opportunity to get out of your suffering and get a better life and you accepted that.”
Worrell, who admitted he was a suspect when he was arrested along with Greene in April 2006, said: “The State never promise me a better life, they told me to speak the truth and that is what I am doing.”
Worrell, who has been receiving the stipend from the State for ten years, also denied he wanted to get revenge against Greene.
The matter was adjourned to today for legal arguments. The jury will return on Wednesday.