Sliema double murder: trial postponed after Daniel Muka refuses to be represented by lawyer

The trial of the man accused of the Locker Street double murder has had to be postponed after the defendant refused to be represented by his legal aid lawyer.

Daniel Muka, 28, was due to go on trial this morning, accused of the murders of Christian Pandolfino and Ivor Maciejowski, who were shot dead inside their home in Locker Street, Sliema, on 18 August, 2020.

Scores of potential jurors spent the entire morning outside the courtroom after being called up for jury duty, only to be dismissed en masse at around 12:00. No official explanation was given, although relatives of the victims, some in visible distress, told waiting reporters that the defendants had threatened the legal aid lawyer appointed to defend them, Simon Micallef Stafrace.

When contacted by the MaltaToday, Micallef Stafrace denied receiving any threats from the accused, but said that he had withdrawn his patronage after Muka had made it “very clear that he did not want to be represented” by him.

READ ALSO: Who is Daniel Muka, the man linked to the Sliema double murder?

Pandolfino, 58, died at the scene after being shot five times in the upper body and neck. His 30-year-old partner, Maciejowski was killed by a single gunshot to the face.

Two other men, Viktor Dragomanski, and Jesper Kristiansen, had also been charged separately in connection with the murder. Kristiansen has also been indicted over the murders, which are alleged to have been the result of a botched burglary.

Muka, an Albanian who had already been charged in connection with other violent crimes, is accused of fatally shooting Pandolfino and Maciejowski and stealing some €2,329 in jewellery and other items, apart from related charges. He was also charged with the keeping of unlicensed firearms and ammunition, using a stolen vehicle, and the theft of two vehicle licence plates.

He is contesting the ten heads of indictment against him: wilful homicide, theft accompanied by wilful homicide, aggravated by violence, means, amount, time and place, unlawful detention and confinement of the two victims against their will whilst subjecting them to bodily harm to extort money or property, possession of a firearm during the commission of an offence, using licence plates stolen from another car, on the getaway vehicle, carrying a firearm without a licence to do so, handling stolen property, two counts of aggravated theft relating to the getaway car and its licence plates and finally, breaching bail conditions.

Muka had been identified from CCTV footage obtained by the police, and was later apprehended after he failed to sign a bail book on 24 August.

He is already the subject of separate criminal proceedings in which he is charged with an armed hold-up and the attempted murder of police officers during a robbery at a jewellery store in Sliema.