Defence lawyers for a man accused of bashing to death his pregnant lover have claimed another married man was in love with her and was "desperate to know" who the father of her unborn child was.
WARNING: This story contains distressing content.
Hassan W Jabbie is charged with one count of murder over the death of Janet Dweh in October 2021.
Ms Dweh was eight months' pregnant when she was bashed to death in her Dayton home.
The state's case is Mr Jabbie killed her because she would not have an abortion, and he was concerned she had told people he was the father.
Prosecutors have told the court a DNA test after Ms Dweh's death confirmed Mr Jabbie was the father of the child she was carrying.
Prosecutor Paul Usher also told the court the alleged murder weapon – a claw hammer stained with Ms Dweh's blood — and other items linked to the murder were found buried near Mr Jabbie's home after he told an undercover police officer where to find them.
Second man probed in court
On Friday, the court heard from Gibson Koffa Jarwee, who said he became friends with Ms Dweh after a gathering on New Year's Day, 2020.
He gave evidence he visited her house on the day she is believed to have been killed but she did not answer the door or her phone.
During cross examination, the court was shown CCTV footage showing Mr Jarwee visiting Ms Dweh on three Sundays in the month leading up to her alleged murder.
These visits included the day the state says she was killed, October 3, 2021, which was also a Sunday.
Mr Jarwee was pressed by defence lawyer Sean Dworcan on whether he usually waited for his wife to go to work before visiting Ms Dweh.
"Weren't you hiding from your wife that you were spending all this time with Janet Dweh?" Mr Dworcan asked.
Mr Jarwee repeatedly denied this was the case.
He gave evidence she was more like a sister to him, as they spoke the same language and belonged to the same Liberian community group living in Perth.
Mr Jarwee said he met Ms Dweh in 2017 or 2018, and they became friends after spending time together at the New Year's Day gathering in 2020.
By 2021 he said he was visiting her regularly, often on a Sunday, though he claimed she also came to his home.
Mr Dworcan put to Mr Jarwee that in his police witness statement he said he repeatedly asked Ms Dweh who the father of her unborn child was.
"You were desperate to know who father was, weren't you?" Mr Dworcan asked.
"I wasn't desperate," Mr Jarwee said.
Mr Dworcan asked Mr Jarwee if he wanted to be in a relationship with Ms Dweh and he replied: "No."
Mr Jarwee said he only wanted to know because Ms Dweh was his friend.
He conceded that in a message sent about a week before her death he called her "baby" but said it may have been a mistake "through the text".
Mr Jarwee was shown CCTV footage which he agreed showed him arriving at her house at 5:08pm on the day Ms Dweh was killed.
The footage shows him knocking on the door, making a phone call, then leaving.
Man denies going back to home
He was then shown a second CCTV clip of a man walking up to the house shortly before 8pm – which Mr Dworcan put to Mr Jarwee was him returning to her home.
"Did you go back to that property that night?" Mr Dworcan asked.
"No, I did not go back there," Mr Jarwee said.
Mr Jarwee was asked whether he owned a black jacket and green pants, which he conceded he did.
A jacket and light-coloured pants were found buried near other items linked to the crime in a vacant block near Mr Jabbie's home in Ellenbrook.
He also eventually conceded he did own a number of backpacks in 2021. The man in the later CCTV clip was wearing a backpack, and a backpack was also found in the vacant block.
Accused says victim kept baby 'without consent'
Ms Dweh's mother, Betty Dweh, also took the stand on Friday.
A recording of a call made on September 3, 2021, to Betty Dweh from a man identified as the accused,Hassan Jabbie, was played to the court.
The court heard police had recovered the recording from Mr Jabbie's wife's phone.
On the recording, the man is heard telling Betty Dweh her daughter had "decided to keep the pregnancy without his consent" despite him telling her "you are a single mother and you need to go and remove it", and that he "didn't want to have anything to do with it [the child]".
During the call he can be heard saying pregnancy should be "consensual" between the two people involved, and Janet Dweh's decision to keep it was a "selfish position".
"Before bringing a child onto this earth two people have to agree," he said.
The trial continues.
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