Rafay jurors hear Canadian police officers' tapes

By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

	Sebastian Burns
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During an expletive-laced conversation that included talk of cars, cocaine, sex and women, Sebastian Burns bragged of his intelligence and the money he'd lined up to shoot a movie.

But undercover Canadian police officers posing as high-rolling criminals also engaged Burns in a discussion about the 1994 slayings of Tariq, Sultana and Basma Rafay and suggested they could help destroy evidence Bellevue police had collected against Burns and co-defendant Atif Rafay.

For a second day, the jury hearing the triple-murder case against Burns and Rafay, both 28, yesterday listened to a taped conversation between Burns and two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in a Vancouver, B.C., hotel room.

The recording from May 1995 is part of some 4,000 hours of audio- and videotaped surveillance captured during a five-month undercover operation. The operation has been the focus of testimony for the past four weeks and is arguably the linchpin to the state's case against the two Canadian citizens who have already spent close to nine years in jail.

Details of the undercover operation have slowly unfolded as King County prosecutors near their finale after five months of testimony. Prosecutors have worked their way through questioning the RCMP's two lead operators about scenarios that were launched to determine whether Burns and Rafay were involved in the Bellevue homicides.

Defense attorneys, who argued during pretrial motions last summer that the Canadian evidence should not be admitted, have used cross-examination of RCMP witnesses to show their clients didn't say anything incriminating while police were listening in after the defendants' house, car and phone were bugged.

The defense maintains Burns and Rafay were coerced into making false confessions.

Court orders in both the United States and Canada prohibit publication of the first names of RCMP Sgt. Haslett and Cpl. Shinkaruk, the two lead operators whose elaborate ruses led to the arrests of Burns and Rafay in July 1995, a year after Rafay's parents and sister were killed in their Bellevue home.

The orders are meant to protect the men's identities because both still work undercover and use their first names when dealing with "targets."

At one point on the tape, Haslett — in the role of a crime boss in the RCMP ploy — asked Burns, "What was your role in that triple homicide?" Burns replied, "They think I'm the murderer ... because we were at the house a few days and they had no leads. ... I'm not really worried about it." Later, Haslett asked, "What kind of evidence do they have against you down there?" Burns said, "I don't know. I don't think they have jack."

The jury also heard Haslett say on the tape, "I know you did that (expletive) murder... " to which Burns replied, "You know it." Later, Burns said, "Well, I didn't say that I did it."

Haslett testified that during a conversation he gave Burns at least 12 opportunities to deny involvement in the homicides. "Did he ever deny it?" asked Senior Deputy Prosecutor James Konat. "No, he did not," Haslett said.

Direct examination of Haslett is to continue next week, before cross-examination by the defense.

In another development, the court spent Wednesday interviewing jurors and Judge Charles Mertel ultimately dismissed a female juror for misconduct.

Including the juror dismissed Wednesday, four people have left the jury since the trial began in November; two were dismissed for allegedly talking about the case and one juror resigned for a job.

Sara Jean Green: sgreen@seattletimes.com

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