Crown witness faced ‘credible threat’ after 2019 slaying

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This article was published 28/10/2021 (1790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A woman ushered out of a Winnipeg rental property as masked killers shot Rig Moulebou in his bed says she feared for her life after receiving threats over social media blaming her for the attack.

Tabitha Greive had already been interviewed by police two times in connection to the Nov. 4, 2019, homicide when, four days later, officers told her they had received a “credible threat” against her life, she testified Thursday in a Winnipeg court room.

Greive told jurors she had previously been threatened over social media by people tied to Moulebou, 20.

“I was scared,” she testified. “People were blaming me, saying that it was my fault, that I set it up, that I was paid to do it.”

Javaid Wahabi, Abdullahi Mohamed and Munachehr Haroon are on trial, charged with first-degree murder.

Prosecutors allege the three targeted Moulebou for death, after he shot and killed Wahabi’s brother, Jamshaid Wahabi, two days earlier at Citizen Nightclub in Winnipeg.

Grieve said she didn’t know the three accused, but Arnold Nduta, a one-time co-accused who has been offered full immunity in return for his testimony, was her then on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Greive, who testified she works as an escort, said she, along with a friend, had rented the Tim Sale Drive home for the month of October via an online service. After returning Nov. 2 from a trip to Montreal, she found the entry code to the home had been changed and Moulebou now occupying it.

“A man opened the door, who we later found out was Rig,” Greive said.

Greive said she spent the night at a hotel and returned to the house the next day to pick up some of her belongings, after which Moulebou accompanied her running errands.

“He had a dirty T-shirt wrapped around his leg with a wound on it,” she said.

Greive said she called the owner of the house, who agreed to let her stay for a couple of more days.

She said she woke the next morning to find Moulebou in bed with her, pushing her for sex, to which she ultimately agreed. Later that day, after police knocked on the door looking for the owner of the house, Greive called Nduta to pick her up.

“I didn’t want to stay there, I just didn’t have anywhere else at the time,” she said.

When Nduta arrived, “He asked me to step outside the house door,” Greive said. “I was confused why he asked me that. It was winter and I didn’t have my coat on.”

As she exited, two men wearing masks and gloves walked from around the corner and into the house.

“I heard two gunshots… almost immediately,” she said.

Greive said Nduta took her by the shoulders to a waiting car, where they were quickly joined by the two masked men, who sat in the back seat.

“Somebody said: ‘Should we do her, too?’” Greive said. “I looked at Arnold and he said: ‘No, she’s OK, I got her.’”

Greive said Nduta dropped the two men off before abandoning the car and calling a taxi to take her and Nduta to his Sterling Lyon Parkway apartment.

When questioned by police the following day, Greive lied.

“I told them a story that Arnold and I came up with; that he picked me up in a taxi and we went to his apartment,” she said.

“I was scared to tell them what happened. I didn’t know who did it, and felt like my life was threatened that night.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca