Informant denies killing Bandidos

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This article was published 24/07/2009 (6162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON, Ont. — One by one, the chilling photographs of eight members of the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos motorcycle gang as they were found the morning of their deaths flashed onto the courtroom video screens Thursday at the murder trial of six men.

Each time, the Crown’s star witness worked to keep his composure.

“Did you kill him?” asked defence lawyer Tony Bryant, as he went through each of the photos of the dead Toronto Bandidos — nicknamed Chopper, Boxer, Crash, Pony, Bam Bam, Little Mikey, Big Paulie and Goldberg.

“No,” former Winnipeg Bandido biker M.H. would say quietly.

“Did Marcelo Aravena kill him?” Bryant, who represents Aravena, asked.

“No,” would come the quiet reply.

“There was no plan” to kill the eight men on April 8, 2006, at Wayne Kellestine’s southwestern Ontario farm, M.H. said, after reaching for tissues to dry his eyes.

On the first day of cross-examination of M.H., three of the six defence teams began reviewing his six days of testimony and tried to get a fuller picture of what their clients were doing when the eight men from the rival Toronto chapter were shot to death.

Among the revelations Thursday was M.H.’s testimony that he had been a police informant in Winnipeg before the Ontario shootings three years ago.

Six men have pleaded not guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder of the bikers found shot to death, their bodies stuffed into vehicles left along a rural road near Shedden, Ont.

The jury has heard evidence the men were shot to death at Kellestine’s farm before their bodies were moved.

Their deaths, the Crown says, resulted from heavy internal politics and conflict between the Bandidos’ Toronto “No Surrender Crew,” the U.S. world headquarters and the fledgling Winnipeg chapter that wanted full status.

M.H., part of a probationary chapter from Winnipeg, was at the farm during the shootings.

Bryant suggested his client, Aravena, was “the ninth” victim.

M.H., Bryant said, had already agreed Aravena “seemed nervous,” while helping to guard the men before they were executed.

Bryant pointed to a conversation M.H. had with Aravena and Dwight Mushey while M.H. was being treated in hospital for a gall bladder attack.

M.H. recalled the conversation for the police and said, “Marvelo thought he was going to be killed.”

“At points, I did too,” M.H. said.

Bryant said his client was “not singing, not dancing, he wasn’t doing a jig, dancing around like a princess; he was sweating like a pig.”

M.H. said it was more like “a deer caught in the headlights.”

“Wayne was telling us all what to do,” M.H. said.

Bryant suggested M.H. might have been “Number 10.”

But Greg Leslie, lawyer for Frank Mather, pointed to evidence Wayne Kellestine might have become a victim and had his Bandidos membership yanked with the other Toronto Bandidos.

M.H. agreed the Winnipeg Bandidos showed up uninvited to Kellestine’s farm two weeks before the shootings after Winnipeg Bandidos president Michael Sandham told them the U.S. wanted to know why it was taking Kellestine so long to pull the Toronto patches and kick the members out of the club.

M.H. has testified that while he’s not being paid for his evidence, his expenses are paid by the witness protection program “as long as I tell the truth.”

— The Canadian Press