Woman gets suspended sentence after admitting to having an abortion

A 30 year-old Tunisian woman was sentenced to two years in jail suspended for four after she admitted to having an abortion earlier this month.

Raya Sellami Zammit was between six and seven weeks pregnant when she asked her friend Soumia Mansouri to procure a cocktail of medicines to end her pregnancy. Mansouri also admitted guilt in separate proceedings and was sentenced to 18 months in jail suspended for three years.

The court was told how Zammit had stated that after being told that the foetus was “going to be stillborn anyway”, she decided to end the pregnancy early. The woman admitted to taking a number of pills, administrered both orally and intravaginally, at an apartment in Fgura to cause the abortion.

Noting that the prosecution had not insisted on an effective prison term, Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras took into consideration the accused’s early guilty plea, her cooperation with the police during the investigation and her unblemished criminal record in sentencing.

Police inspectors Joseph Busuttil and Spiridione Zammit prosecuted.