'Accused strangled Rita Ellul out of fear of police report,' court hears

The jury trying Lawrence Abina for the murder of his partner, Rita Ellul, has heard a police inspector recall how Abina had told him that he had strangled the woman to death because he was afraid of being jailed had she survived and gone to the police. 

Several witnesses testified as Abina’s trial continued on Friday. Abina denies having killed Ellul inside her apartment in Għajnsielem on February 26, 2022. 

Police inspector Wayne Camilleri, who had interrogated the accused on several occasions, told the court that during the second interrogation session, Abina had confessed to having killed the woman, using hand gestures to show the police how he had used his thumbs to strangle the sleeping woman.
“He confessed that while he was strangling her, something inside him wanted to stop, in fact he told us he couldn't look her in the eye and had closed his eyes while he was doing it,” said the witness.
“He told us that something inside him had been urging him to stop, but he said that he knew he had reached the point of no return, because if he had stopped and Rita lived on, she would have reported him to the police and he would have ended up in jail.” 

The inspector said he hadn’t been convinced that Abina was telling the whole truth about his relationship with the victim, when interrogating the accused for the first time, so he had 
confronted him with a domestic violence report she had filed in 2020, in which she had said that Abina had been physically violent towards her before.

“He said ‘yes she reported me’ but that there is nothing to worry about because she was going to drop the charges,” said the inspector, adding that Abina had told him that he “still loved Rita and had nothing to hide.” 

The day after Abina’s initial interrogation, Camilleri said he had also taken down a statement from one of Ellul’s closest friends, who had been with the victim in Abina’s apartment on the night before the murder. 

The woman told him that she had once briefly rented an apartment in Marsalforn to Ellul and the accused and had become friends with the victim during that time. 
The victim’s friend had told investigators that on one phone call with Ellul she had heard the couple arguing and Ellul screaming for help. Inspector Camilleri recalled that she said she had asked them to vacate the apartment as a result of what she had heard, fearing that a murder would take place there.

Murder motivated by made-up love rival

Ellul’s friend and former landlord had also told Camilleri of trouble in the victim’s relationship with the accused after she had discovered that Abina was dating other women and having sex with prostitutes. Ellul’s reaction to this discovery was to make up a story about meeting a man named Stefan who had been messaging her frequently, in order to prompt Abina to pay more attention to her.

He described how Abina had explained his motive, during his second interrogation session.
“He told us he had been thinking about killing her from the day before ... and when we asked him why, he said that when Rita was having fun with her friend and his roommate it was the first time that he had seen her happy in a very long time,” Camilleri said. 
“Abina told us that Rita was unhappy with him and they were constantly arguing. She was aware of the fact that he was seeing other women and he also mentioned a man named Stefan.” Abine had told the police that Ellul had spoken to him about this Maltese man named Stefan and that she was considering leaving him for. “Of course, Lawrence didn’t know that this Stefan didn’t exist. But he said that the main reason he wanted to kill Rita Ellul was because of Stefan.” 

Camilleri was cross-examined by lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace, who asked whether the police had looked into Stefan and investigated whether he really was a made up character or not. 
The inspector replied that he had not personally looked into it, but was unable to say whether anyone else had. 
“So your assessment of whether or not this Stefan is a real person is based on what you heard from Rita’s friend?” he asked. The inspector replied that it was.