2016 in review | Spectre of vendetta never too far away

Murders and bomb attacks

Six people were murdered over the past year, two of them in car bombings, raising fears that the local authorities were failing in their struggle against organised crime.

In January, Martin Cachia, 56, was killed when a bomb destroyed the car he was driving. Cachia had a pending court case in connection with human trafficking and was involved in a number of court cases in connection with drugs, contraband cigarettes and human smuggling. Cachia, who was also a registered fisherman, was investigated in connection with the smuggling of fuel from Libya. As far as is publicly known, it was never concluded whether Cachia had been knowingly carrying the bomb or whether the device had been planted in his car.

In March, no one was injured when an explosive device detonated at a boathouse in Armier, belonging to a 38-year-old man from Attard.

In September, a 37-year-old stevedore lost both his legs when a bomb that was planted underneath his van exploded on a busy Marsa road during the evening rush hour.

The third car bomb of 2016 claimed the life of businessman Joseph Camilleri, detonating under his car seat as he left his partner’s Bugibba flat in November.

Martin Cachia was killed in January when a bomb destroyed the car he was driving

Libyan nationals Zyad Mohamed Drebeka and Ahmed Rasem Franko pleaded not guilty in May to the murder of a Colombian man in Paceville in May. The men, aged 23 and 29 years respectively, were charged with the homicide of the 37-year-old Colombian man, who succumbed to injuries he sustained in a fight in Paceville.

The nation reacted with outrage at the murder of Eleanor Mangion Walker, a 33 year-old mother of one, whose body was found in a warehouse in Qormi last July, having been bludgeoned to death. The woman’s estranged husband, Andrew Mangion, was accused of the crime.

In a similar case, 41-year-old mother of two Caroline Magri was fatally stabbed at Ta’ Giorni in October. Her estranged Ghanaian partner, Djibril Ganiou, was subsequently charged with her murder.

Also in October, police are understood to have questioned a middle-aged Serbian woman in connection with the deaths, eight months apart, of two elderly Englishmen, both of whom died at her apartment. 

2016 Extraditions

The extraditions of five international fugitives, arrested in Malta, drew an international spotlight on the island this year.

February saw the courts uphold a request for the extradition of librarian Kajetan Poznanski, who was wanted in his native Poland in connection with the gruesome murder of his female Italian teacher whose charred, decapitated body was discovered in a bag inside his apartment.

Lithuania’s request for the extradition of Angelo Spiteri to face fraud charges led to a landmark Constitutional ruling in June, granting him bail whilst extradition proceedings were still ongoing. An Italian request for the extradition of mafia informer-turned-fugitive Donatella Concas was upheld in November. Her subsequent appeal was given short shrift by the courts.

Miami-based Chilean businessman Alberto Chang-Rajii, wanted in Chile on charges of running a $100 million pyramid scheme, caused ripples across the Atlantic

As the year came to a close, news of the arrest in Malta of Miami-based Chilean businessman Alberto Chang-Rajii, wanted in Chile on charges of running a $100 million pyramid scheme, caused ripples across the Atlantic. Chang-Rajii filed Constitutional proceedings in late December, claiming court procedures were preventing him from paying his bail deposit.

Juries

Three trials by jury of note took place this year, of which only one ended with a conviction. In March, former policeman Carmel Cutajar was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for attempted homicide, having shot his wife in the chest in 2012, causing a non-fatal wound. The jury found Cutajar guilty of the charge, however with diminished responsibility after hearing the man’s wife admit to depriving him of access to his children whilst carrying on an extramarital affair.

In May, former barman Godfrey Gambin, and Libyan national Adel Mohammed Babani, were declared not guilty by seven votes to two of involvement in a 2010 criminal operation in which a speedboat, laden with 20kg of cannabis sailed into Xemxija. The first day of the trial saw the first witness, former Assistant Commissioner of Police Neil Harrison reveal that the men had been arrested as a result of a controlled delivery and that police had been liaising with one of the men on the speedboat. This pivotal detail had not been mentioned in the six years since the men had been arrested, a fact that was exploited to the fullest extent by the defence.

A unanimous not guilty verdict was reached in November’s trial of a man accused of murdering an employee at an Italian restaurant in St Julian’s in January 1993. 

The man was found not guilty of wilful homicide by a unanimous verdict and not guilty of the other six heads of indictment: theft aggravated by violence, means, time and value, detaining a person against their will, possession of an unlicensed firearm and carrying a loaded weapon by 7 votes to 2. The verdict was reached after five hours of deliberation on the 16th day of the trial.

Crimes by foreigners 

41-year-old mother of two Caroline Magri was fatally stabbed at Ta’ Giorni in October. Her estranged Ghanaian partner, Djibril Ganio (centre), was subsequently charged with her murder

Although the official statistics for 2016 are not yet available, last year’s upward trend of small-scale bag snatching thefts, shoplifting and muggings appears to have continued, from the considerable number of arraignments – of mostly foreign nationals, the majority from Eastern Europe – for the petty crimes. 

On a more serious note, the risk of foreign conflicts being “imported” to Malta was flagged as early as February by Magistrate Joseph Mifsud, as he presided the arraignment of a Libyan national accused of stabbing another Libyan in an incident prompted by the sectarian divisions in the failed North African state.

Homelessness factor frequently raised in court

Probably the most notable, and to some extent worrying, crime-related statistic this year has seen is the mushrooming homeless population. At least 15 of the people arraigned before the court this year told the court that they were homeless, a statement more often than not, confirmed by the arraigning police inspector. 

The discovery of the body of a homeless Somali man under the Marsa bridge earlier this month drew the spotlight of public attention to the plight of homeless African refugees, but homelessness is not an affliction exclusive to refugees – an increasing number of Maltese citizens, mostly men, often with family and/or drug problems, appear to be sleeping rough or in their cars.

U21 Match-fixing scandal

2016 was something of an annus horribilis for Maltese football, with the Maltese international Under 21 football team finding itself at the centre of a match-fixing investigation linked to a foreign betting syndicate. 

Curiosity corner

Librarian Kajetan Poznanski, who was wanted in his native Poland in connection with the gruesome murder of his female Italian teacher whose charred, decapitated body was discovered in a bag inside his apartment

Oddball cases and characters are three a penny in court. Occasionally, however, one or two outlandish crimes will push those already-stretched boundaries of oddball-ness, crossing the frontier into the murky realm of “I honestly don’t know what is appropriate to say here.”

A number of cases from 2016 immediately come to mind, although there are sure to be others.

October’s peeping-tom sports-coach-who-also-runs-a-childcare-centre story unleashed a torrent of public outrage at the court’s decision to ban the publication of the name of a man who admitted to installing hidden cameras in a female volleyball team’s changing room. The man was handed a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

The absence of a consistent approach by the courts to such cases was evident when that arraignment was followed, a month later, by the case of the Naked Nigerian Onanist, whose identity did not enjoy such protection. 

The third case in the tragic minefield of the comic-yet-ghastly, also in November, was the case of a man reported to the police by his new bride for engaging in sexual activities with a 14-year-old relative of hers. The court was told that the teen had candidly stated that she was a willing participant.

More serious was another November arraignment, of a 22-year-old woman charged with falsely accusing a bus driver of raping her in his off-duty vehicle. The woman was arrested after police said CCTV from inside the bus showed the encounter to be consensual.

A dishonourable mention goes to last June’s disturbing case of a 60-year-old man who was accused of bringing prostitutes home to share with his seven-year-old son “to prevent him from growing up to be gay” and of whipping the boy with electrical cord when he was unable to participate.

And although 2016 wasn’t all bad – the police succeeded in smashing a local paedophile ring, for example – few will be sorry to see the back of it.

So roll on 2017, you can’t be much worse than your older brother... right?