Travolta key witness in $34m blackmail trial

Breaking his silence over the death of his teenage son, and braving awkward questions about the Church of Scientology, John Travolta is preparing to give evidence in a bizarre blackmail trial involving a paramedic who tried to save the boy's life.

The actor, whose 16-year-old son Jett had a fatal seizure at the family's holiday home in the Bahamas, has returned to the scene of the tragedy.

He will speak publicly about Jett's death for the first time when he appears as star witness in the trial of two locals implicated in a US$25 million ($34.4 million) extortion plot.

Travolta is among 14 witnesses scheduled to testify against Tarino Lightbourne, an ambulance driver who performed CPR on the dying boy, and former Bahamian senator Pleasant Bridgewater, a lawyer, who is accused of acting as his accomplice.

The two, whose trial began yesterday, were caught on tape demanding millions of dollars from Travolta in exchange for a legal document relating to Jett's treatment. Prosecutors say they threatened to sell it to the media if no cash was forthcoming.

"Contact was made with certain persons to communicate a threat to John Travolta," said Bernard Turner, the chief prosecutor in the Bahamas, in his opening argument yesterday.

The document at the centre of the case is not a "smoking gun" so much as a liability release form, signed by Travolta on January 2, in the chaotic moments after an ambulance arrived at his home to treat Jett, who was found unconscious in a bathroom.

The form released the ambulance crew from responsibility should Travolta prevent his son being transported to hospital.

But its contents are largely irrelevant, as Jett was almost immediately taken to Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport.

Lightbourne and Bridgewater are accused oftrying to sell the release form at a time when controversy was raging over the influence that the Church of Scientology - to which the Travoltas belong - might have had on the way Jett was treated.

Jett, who died after losing consciousness and hitting his head on a bathtub, had a history of seizures. According to the Travolta family, he had Kawasaki disease, a rare condition which causes inflammation of small and medium-size arteries.

That explanation has been questioned, though, since Kawasaki disease rarely affects children over the age of 8, and is almost never fatal.

Experts wondered if Jett's condition was exacerbated by autism, a condition not recognised by the church, which believes mental illness to be psychosomatic.

Lightbourne is accused of persuading Bridgewater to contact a lawyer for the Travoltas, and demand US$25 million for the return of the liability form.

Both defendants have pleaded not guilty. It is not yet clear why they thought Travolta, 55, would be willing to pay so much to prevent the liability form becoming public, regardless of the controversy over Jett's treatment.

The actor and his wife, Kelly Preston, have been keeping a low profile since the tragedy and have not returned to the holiday home where it occurred.

Travolta is reported to be staying west of Nassau.

- INDEPENDENT