Star witness testifies in murder case

Hasib bin Golamrabbi defends himself by cross-examining one-time friend with whom he stayed before the slayings

SAN JOSE >> A key witness testified Wednesday that Hasib bin Golamrabbi, charged with murdering his parents at their Evergreen home two years ago, not only confessed to the crime but concocted a video plot that would show he was coerced into the killings by an imaginary assailant with a vendetta against the victims.

Golamrabbi, 25, is representing himself in the ongoing trial and methodically cross-examined his one-time friend. He also unsuccessfully sought to convey to the jury that he might have made a false confession to protect his younger brother from being punished for their parents’ deaths. But each time he tried, Judge Vanessa Zecher struck down the insinuation.

Zecher demonstrated steady patience with the defendant as he questioned the witness, 23-year-old Matthew Kuch, and urged him to rephrase questions when they prompted objections from Deputy District Attorney Carlos Vega.

But the heart of Wednesday’s hearing revolved around Kuch, who recalled how two days after the bodies of Golam Rabbi, 59, and Shamima Rabbi, 57, were discovered at their hillside Evergreen home, Golamrabbi showed up at his home in Tracy looking “cautious, exhausted and unfocused.”

“He told me he needed help with something only I could be trusted with,” said Kuch, who became friends with the defendant when they both attended De Anza College. “He told me not to be alarmed. He admitted he killed both of his parents.”

Kuch added that Golamrabbi detailed how “he retrieved his father’s rifle and shot his father five times in the back,” and that when his mother entered the garage, Golamrabbi told her to leave before “she was shot in the back of the head.”