Nothing ties Fodie Keita to 2010 migrant murder, defence insists as jury reaches end

Defence says no evidence connected Keita to murder of Malian migrant Adame Diabate, as they attacked the call record evidence

Fodie Keita defence tell court nothing ties accused to 2010 Hal Far murder of Adame Diabate
Fodie Keita defence tell court nothing ties accused to 2010 Hal Far murder of Adame Diabate

Lawyers defending a man on trial for brutally murdering a Malian migrant near Hal Far in 2010 have said there is nothing to tie him to the crime.

Lawyers Lara Lanfranco from the Office of the Attorney General and lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace, who is defending Fodie Keita, who hails from the Ivory Coast, made their closing arguments in what by recent standards has been a brief trial, this morning.  

Keita, 40, who is accused of the murder of 30 year old Adame Diabate from Mali in 2010. He is also accused of hiding Diabate’s body and stealing his mobile phone.

Lanfranco told the jury that Fodie Keita had decided to eliminate Diabate as he beleived that doing so would solve his job problem.  The victim was killed over a triviality, she said.

The lawyer argued that there was no doubt that Keita was guilty of wilful homicide, which carries with it a possible life sentence, that he hid the body and stole the victim’s mobile phone.

She referred to the testimony of fellow Hal Far Open Centre resident Moussa Coulibali, who had reported hearing a sound behind a tree and thinking it was two people having sex. A voice, in the Malian Bambaram language, ordered him to keep on walking.

Three possible suspects came to mind, with the first being the accused, he had said.

The prosecution made detailed submissions about mobile phone call logs, saying that there was no doubt that the Samsung mobile found in the possession of the accused belonged to the victim.

Adama Diabate was a peaceful man, she said. “He came to Malta, leaving his country and the problems there to make a new life for himself hre, and Keita decided to kill him over a trivial matter. It was a waste of life.” From Diabate’s horrific injuries there was no doubt that Keita had intended to kill him, she said.

“Not a scratch” or DNA cross-contamination on accused, defence points out.

In the defence’s reply, Micallef Stafrace reminded the jurors that the prosecution “had suggested a struggle” but that none of his DNA was found on the victim and none of the victim’s DNA was found on him. Furthermore, Keita had no defensive wounds, said the lawyer. “Not a scratch”.

“This alone should create reasonable doubt,” said the lawyer. As will be explained to them this afternoon by presiding judge Antonio Mizzi, jurors must be convinced beyond reasonable doubt before returning a guilty verdict.

But there was more, he said. The man who had said he recognised Keita’s voice had not seen the accused, pointed out the lawyer and had gone from saying that it might be him, to it “probably” being him.

Micallef Stafrace slammed the police investigation into the homicide as being “severely lacking in thoroughness.”

The lawyer urged jurors to be careful about one eyewitnesses who had said Keita was sleeping in an irregular manner at the open centre. The defence had asked for a bed plan layout, but this was not available, he said.

“We don’t have moral certainty on where Keita didn’t sleep and the person who could have confirmed was not contacted by the police.

“Remember, Keita is an immigrant and he doesn’t have millions to appoint private investigators. He trusted the police to do their work, and they failed to do so.” If the police failed to bring the evidence in those witnesses, then what he said becomes evidence, argued the lawyer.

Keita’s statement had been corroborated by the facts until he realised that the police were trying to pin the murder on him and clammed up, said Micallef Stafrace. “Had it been me, I would not have said a word either.”

A knife hilt with the initials “FK” had been recovered from the scene. When asked, Former police Inspector Chris Pullicino had sidestepped questions about a register for residents at the Open Center. “There were two FKs in the register that day,” said the lawyers. “Pullicino had not even known about the existence of the register in the acts of the case.”

“On that day in the Open Centre, there were at least two other people with initials FK.”

The blade was not found and is not in the evidence, bar the defensive wounds, added the lawyer.

“A witness had said that ‘Fodie phoned the boss but the boss did not want him to go to work anymore.’ The people who know both of the men involved said they didn’t expect it to end in murder.”

“His boss had said that he was fired because he was worried about his daughter,” reminded the lawyer. “Why did he mention it? Nobody told him to mention it. Because that was the reason he was fired and not because of Adama! This famous motive does not exist!” said Micallef Stafrace.

The defence also attacked the phone record evidence.

Keita’s call records did show the farmer’s alleged call telling him not to go to work because Adame was better. “This is an enormous doubt,” the lawyer said.

“The call records showed that the farmer had called the victim six weeks before he was supposed to have even know him.”

The defence lawyer argued that the victim and his alleged killer had never contacted each other, using phone records to back up this assertion. The victim’s SIM card was never found.

Phone company records relating to the numbers called gave a completely different phone IMEI  -a phone’s unique identifier number- to that belonging to the accused and neither the phone company representatives nor the court-appointed expert could explain it, he said.

“Am I going to declare a man as a killer on the strength of this? This is nothing, tied to the fact that there is nothing of Fodies’s on the body, no DNA, or anything of the sort.”

“What is here is inescapable. It is an IMEI of a different mobile phone. You cannot find guilt. Eliminate this, eliminate DNA and what do you have? A handle with ‘FK’ engraved on it.”

Micallef Stafrace ended his brief final address, saying he had said all there was to say. “I feel that on the strength of the forensic evidence and the call records alone, you should arrive at a not guilty verdict. You cannot find guilt on the basis of a phone that doesn’t exist.” The judge will begin summing up the case on Saturday, with the jury expected to retire to deliberate early next week.

Lawyers Lara Lanfranco and Kevin Valletta from the Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting, while lawyers Marc Sant and Simon Micallef Stafrace are defence counsel. Judge Antonio Mizzi is presiding the trial.