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Bulatci tried to reach witnesses from jail

Elizabeth McMillan
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 9, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Jurors listened as a recording of Emrah Bulatci's infant daughter's voice gurgled and laughed. On the same recording the man accused of killing RCMP Const. Christopher Worden is heard asking his girlfriend and family to send people after witnesses.

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RCMP officers escorted Emrah Bulatci to trial proceedings in Yellowknife Friday, Nov. 6, 2009. - Cameron Ginn/NNSL photo

"If you get a chance to talk to your dad, try to get him to send somebody to get the cab driver, then I'll be out in like three months," Bulatci said to his crying girlfriend, Sara McAulay, when she visited him at the North Slave Correctional Centre and told him "I miss you so much."

The court heard excerpts from 11 recordings taken when Bulatci's family visited him in jail on Oct. 20 and Nov. 11, 2007. Bulatci is accused of first-degree murder of Worden in Hay River two years ago. The Supreme Court jury trial wrapped its 13th day on Friday.

In Turkish, he told his own father, "There's this one man; if that man doesn't show up, I'll win. I'll get out right away ... in about three to four months."

"Who's the man?" his father Erdogan Bulatci asked.

"The one who drove the thing, the cab driver," responded Emrah Bulatci.

Bulatci also told McAulay and his brother to use a pay phone and direct one of his friends to send someone after Justin Anderson.

"The only reason I'm here is because of him," he said.

Anderson testified earlier in the trial that he and three other men beat Bulatci in an Edmonton hotel room the day before Bulatci's arrest. Anderson said he'd sold drugs for Bulatci and blamed him for his own three-month jail term.

Bulatci, sounded angry and, at times, indignant in the recordings taken in the weeks following Worden's death.

"There's going to be a lawsuit ... we can make some money," he told McAulay as they discussed the investigation and planned to sue for what they would argue was Bulatci's unlawful arrest.

"It'll be OK, As long as you're out there, babe," he said.

Bulatci also recounted the last moments before the shooting.

"The policeman said to me, "Put your hands on the thing" and so I went to put my hands there ...

"He said 'you're under arrest.' I said 'why?' Then he said you're under arrest.' So I ran away.

"Nobody saw me when I shot the gun," he said.

Earlier in the trial, the court heard from several witnesses who said they heard shots, and two who say they saw the incident. None of them called the police.

As the recordings played in the courtroom, Bulatci broke from his normally stoic demeanour and looked at the floor, at times rubbing his eyes and cupping the back at his head as he leaned forward.

Earlier in the day, an undercover RCMP officer, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, told the court he shared a cell with Bulatci after he was arrested in Edmonton on Oct. 12, 2007.

The officer said he posed as a money collector and told Bulatci a cover story about being wrongfully accused of rape. The two cell mates compared stories and he said Bulatci boasted the police brought "helicopters and tanks" to arrest him, saying, "Am I the president or some shit?"

Bulatci told the officer he was in jail because he shot a cop but denied responsibility.

"He said, 'I'm innocent'," said the corporal, who is based in the undercover division in Edmonton.

"I'm not going to rat on my friends," Bulatci reportedly told the officer. "I'm not going to do 25 years."

Last Wednesday, the court heard testimony from a forensics expert who said Worden was shot at least twice at close range. John Marshall testified the two bullets found in Worden's body came from the same gun and matched the four copper shells found at the crime scene.

The Crown is calling two more witnesses today (Nov. 9), one is the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Worden's body. The defence said its case will only take two days and Bulatci will be taking the stand. Closing arguments are expected to begin next Monday.

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