Accused breaks down in witness box

A man accused of murdering honeymooner Michaela McAreavey broke down in court after claiming he was tortured by police during interrogation.

Avinash Treebhoowon sobbed and wiped tears away as he spoke of being separated from his wife and family on his arrest in the wake of the Tyrone teacher’s death in a Mauritius hotel.

Giving evidence in his own defence at the Supreme Court in Port Louis, he claimed he shouted out for his mother as officers beat him while he lay naked and handcuffed on a table.

The 31-year-old also alleged he was slapped so hard on the head that he was unable to hear out of one ear.

Earlier, the former cleaner acknowledged he had been in the room of the Legends Hotel where the 27-year-old newlywed was found strangled on the day of the crime in January last year.

But at the time she died in room 1025, he insisted he was elsewhere in the resort.

Mr Treebhoowon and co-accused Sandip Mooneea, aged 42, another ex-member of staff at Legends, deny murdering the daughter of Tyrone football boss Mickey Harte.

The prosecution claims they attacked her when she interrupted them stealing in her room, having left her husband by the pool to fetch biscuits for her tea.

Mr Treebhoowon rem-ained composed throughout most of his testimony until he reached the conclusion and recalled telling police on the day of his arrest to inform his wife Reshma why he would not be coming home.

“I told them I was innocent,” he said, crying. “I was thinking about my family.”

Mr Treebhoowon signed a statement of confession three days after Ms Mc-Areavey’s death. But he has since insisted the admission was extracted by violent means.

Mr Treebhoowon, from Plaine des Roches, was a room attendant at the hotel while Mr Mooneea, from Petit Raffray, was his floor supervisor.

Mrs McAreavey’s widower John watched proceedings from the public gallery as the man accused of murdering his wife gave evidence.

Mr Treebhoowon said three officers arrested him while he was working at the resort on Jan 11, 2011 — the day after Mrs Mc-Areavey died. After making him show them where he kept his cleaning trolley and uniform, Mr Treebhoowon said they took him away in a police van.

Before leaving, he claimed a policewoman urged him to say what he knew. “She told me a woman lost her life,” he said.

“I told her I didn’t know what happened but I knew she lost her life.”

One of the officers who escorted him from the hotel was Chief Inspector Luciano Gerard, Mr Treebhoowon said.

“Mr Gerard told me ‘You have to co-operate’. I told him, ‘I don’t know anything, what can I explain to you when I don’t know anything?’”

He said he was taken to a police station in the town of Piton where an officer slapped him twice on the face. The accused claimed he was taken upstairs and police started to take a statement from him while he was crying.

He said one officer asked why he was weeping and he said it was because he had never been beaten before.

At that, he alleged Mr Gerard took a plastic bottle and struck him over the head with the end of it three times.

Mr Treebhoowon said he asked the officer why he was beating him. “Mr Gerard said, ‘I’m not beating you, you will know what a beating is — now talk’,” he alleged.

He claimed officers then abruptly stopped taking his statement and said they were taking him to Port Louis, where the headquarters of the police’s specialist unit — the major crime investigation team (MCIT) — was based.

The accused claimed police constable Jean Robert Manoovaloo slapped him twice on the same cheek when he was leaving.

Mr Treebhoowon alleged that on the way to Port Louis, the police had stopped in the district of Pamplemousses and took him out of the van to inflict further violence.

He said he was punched four times in the stomach. “I told them I don’t know anything,” he said. “I’m innocent.”

Mr Treebhoowon claimed the beating stopped only because passersby could see.

On arrival at the MCIT offices, the defendant said he was taken upstairs to the back room — a kitchen.

He said police briefly left, with one officer warning him: “Take your breaths well, think well what you need to say to us.”

He told the court he was still crying.

The accused then claimed another officer came in and said Mr Treebhoowon could tell him what happened if he did not want to talk to the others.

He said the other officers soon returned, took off his handcuffs, and ordered him to strip naked. He claimed he was then told to get on the table. “I climbed up, I was nude,” he said.

He said he was recuffed, one officer held his hands, another held his legs, while one of their colleagues whipped him on the soles of his feet with a cable pipe.

Mr Treebhoowon said the officers then ordered him off the table and told him to jump up and down so the “blood does not clot” and cause bruises. “I was crying, I could not stay with the pain,” he said. “I wasn’t able to stand on my feet, they were in pain.”

He said more officers came into the room and he was placed on a chair, still naked. “They took a towel into the kitchen and covered that on my face so that I could not see,” he claimed.

“They beat me, slapped me, punched me — I was in pain, I couldn’t stand it.”

He alleged one officer then slapped him five times on the head, causing him to lose hearing in his left ear.

“While slapping me, I got hurt in my ears. I didn’t tell them that my ears got hurt because I was scared,” he said. “I wasn’t able to hear with my left ear.”

He said that throughout he pleaded innocence. “I never seen that woman,” he recalled telling officers.

“How can I kill someone I have never known? My parents have not inculcated such bad things in me.”

Mr Treebhoowon told the court he was then forced to have a shower downstairs in front of watching police.

After getting changed, he said the head of MCIT, Yoosoof Soopun, came over to him. He said he placed his leg on a chair in front of him and revealed a gun in his sock.

“He showed me his revolver and told me, ‘If you don’t speak the truth, you will be killed by it today.’ I told him I’m innocent.”

The defendant said his alleged ordeal at the hands of the MCIT that day ended when he was taken to a detention centre.

He said he told a policeman to tell his wife he would not be coming home.

At this stage, Mr Treebhoowon became visibly emotional and his voice faltered. “My wife lives alone,” he said.

“I told him to inform my wife, inform her what happened, and that I won’t be returning home today.”

There were heated exchanges between defence and prosecution counsel at the outset of Mr Treebhoowon’s evidence as state counsel Mehdi Manrakhan objected to the way Sanjeev Teeluckdharry was questioning his witness.

Judge Prithviraj Fecknah intervened. “I will just call upon everybody to calm down,” he said.