Murder case delay ‘not my fault’ says former police inspector

The former police inspector Daniel Zammit, has denied having been responsible for stalling a murder case involving the former son-in-law of Joe Gaffarena, with whom he was in business.

Zammit released a statement through his lawyers Stefano Filletti and Stephen Tonna Lowell denying a conclusion in an inquiry by Judge Michael Mallia, that he frivolously requested an inquiring magistrate to take swabs from Romina Gaffarena, the ex-wife of Stephen Caruana, accused of shooting dead her lover Neville Baldacchino in December 2008.

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Mallia said that Zammit stalled the compilation of evidence with an unnecessary request to swab Gaffarena for a comparison to be made with tissue samples from the scene of the crime. The 2010 request was opposed by the defence, and by May 2012 the defence demanded a constitutional verdict on the request; it was only in May 2013 that the court itself referred the matter to a constitutional court, and the matter remains pending to this day.

But Zammit stated that this was not his request, but that it was made by the Attorney General and consequently supported by him as co-prosecutor in the charges against Caruana.

“In similar criminal procedures, it was his obligation to present the best evidence possible. In this case there was forensic and scientific proof that could be presented instead of circumstantial evidence. Daniel Zammit would have neglected his duty had he opposed the Attorney General’s request,” Zammit’s lawyers said.

They said it took 13 months from the December 2008 murder to collect the evidence, and that it was the Magistrate’s Court that had to determine the request to take swabs when it cropped up in 2010.

“Daniel Zammit cannot be held responsible for the judicial delay in the constitutional case that is still pending to this day.”

The lawyers also said that Mallia’s report did not mention the “years of dedicated labour and cases Zammit solved… he breached no procedure in the Neville Baldacchino murder.”

In his inquiry Judge Mallia further said that the police investigation was compromised by Zammit’s relationship with the Gaffarena family: in 2010, his family set up St Gabriel Residential Homes together with father-in-law Gregory Buttigieg, and Joe Gaffarena, father of Romina.

Zammit has since separated from Buttigieg’s daughter, and since Buttigieg refused to relinquish his shareholding without compensation, the Gaffarenas and the Zammits set up Geras Healthcare in 2014, further cementing their business relationship.

On this matter, Zammit said in his statement that his stakes were in companies that had not carried out any business.