Attorney General asks court to revoke bail in murder case

The Attorney General today filed an application before the criminal court requesting an order granting bail to Gregorio Scicluna, accused of murder, be revoked.

Scicluna had been charged with the murder of Joseph Caruana and the attempted murder of his wife and two children, aged 3 and 5, as well as firearms offences.

Noting that Scicluna has numerous previous convictions to his name, amongst them complicity to murder and sexual offences, some of them against minors, the application states that several previous requests for bail had been declined by the court.

The Attorney General felt “manifestly aggrieved” that despite his objections, the court of Magistrates granted Scicluna bail on10 September, albeit under strict conditions and a hefty deposit.

Describing Scicluna as “very irascible and utterly untrustworthy”, the application goes on to highlight the accused’s criminal record as proof that he has not learned from his previous convictions, but to the contrary “went up a scale” in his criminal behaviour.

This time, instead of procuring a weapon and convincing someone to commit murder, he did the deed himself, placing his children’s lives in manifest jeopardy in the process.

It alleges that on the day of the incident in question, Scicluna had an argument with his girlfriend and mother of his children, Maria Simone Caruana. The woman tried to escape the aggression of her lover together with their children and her father, Joseph, who was killed after being shot in the back by Scicluna.

Not content to have killed him, Scicluna is alleged to have struck the deceased’s head with the butt of his shotgun with enough force to break the weapon.

Adding that “even if the accused were to obey the terms of his bail, it would offer little comfort to his ex-partner and children, who are also prosecution witnesses”, the application requested the court rescind its initial grant of bail and order the re-arrest of the accused.