Marsa double murder: Woman killed while on phone with police, court hears

The female victim of a double homicide in Marsa was on the phone with a 112 operator when she was killed, a court has been told.

Carmen Abela was found dead, her mobile phone still in her hand, police Inspector Kurt Zahra testified as he took the witness stand in the first sitting of the compilation of evidence against Iddrisu Faisal on Monday.

Faisal, 34, a plasterer from Ghana, is charged with the murders of 73-year-old Joseph Bartolo and 56-year-old Carmen Abela as well as the attempted murder of another woman from Nigeria. The victims killed at stables they owned in Marsa on 15 October.

Faisal is also accused of grievously injuring the woman and slightly injuring another Nigerian man, as well as charges relating to resisting arrest, damaging private property, disobeying lawful police orders and slightly injuring a police officer.

Inspector Zahra told Magistrate Gabriella Vella that Abela had called the police asking for assistance, telling the emergency dispatcher that she and Bartolo were being assaulted by Faisal. The line went dead right after she said that Iddrisu Faisal was beside her.

On the other end of the phone line, the police could hear shouts of “go away” and crashing sounds, Zahra said. When he arrived at the scene, he found the stables’ wooden door broken open, unable to fully open because the woman’s body was right behind it, her mobile phone still in her hand.

A short distance away, Zahra saw Bartolo’s body. “He appeared to have been struck by such a powerful blow that the shape of his head had been altered.” The blow had been delivered with a bolt cutter, almost a metre long, said the inspector.

A police constable suffered facial injuries while arresting Faisal, who resisted the police and had to be subdued with a taser.

Inspector Zahra explained that at around 9:30am that day, the Hamrun police station had received a report of a man carrying a knife in Triq it-Tigrija in Marsa. Officers were dispatched to the area but did not find him. In the meantime, another phone call was received informing the police that the man was in Triq Dicembru 13, near the old horse riding school where the murders took place.

While the patrol was still in Triq it-Tigrija, it spotted a police Land Rover, and three men wearing white t-shirts bearing police insignia outside it. The patrol went to investigate after the men signalled that they required assistance. They told the patrol that they had seen a man armed with a large metal bar struggling with another man who was trying to prise it out of his grasp.

The armed man had jumped over a nearby gate and was quickly arrested by police from the Rapid Intervention Unit.

A sergeant from the Hamrun police station who had arrived at the scene had discovered the victims’ bodies.

Faisal resisted arrest

Inspector Zahra had gone to the scene as soon as he was informed about the murder by the police control room. Seeing that the crime scene was being preserved and where the aggressor had been arrested, the inspector had gone to the scene of the arrest to assist. He found Faisal handcuffed on the ground, still resisting but being held down by police officers.

When he returned to the crime scene, he spoke to a man and a woman who were being treated by paramedics. The woman told him that she had been attacked with a large metal object wielded by Faisal.

She told the police that she and others lived in the stables, for which they paid rent. That morning she had walked to the common area to brush her teeth when something hard hit her and she fell to the ground.

Inspector Zahra then spoke to the man who was being treated by the paramedics, who turned out to be the brother of the woman he had just spoken to. He had heard his sister screaming and saw the defendant hitting his sister with a large metal bolt cutter. He had managed to disarm the attacker. This part of the incident had been captured on CCTV, said the inspector.

Not far from the crime scene was an office used by the police’s cavalry section. Officers there had heard banging and shouting and had gone to the roof to see what was happening, observing a man with a bolt cutter in his hands at the main door of the residence where the murders took place.

Rushing to the scene in the police Land Rover, the officers eventually detained Faisal, who had climbed up the gate to the premises, using a taser.

Inspector Zahra had walked around the small rooms in the stables, noticing blood droplets and items belonging to the Nigerian woman who had been assaulted as well as to the defendant.

Panicked woman called relatives: ‘A black man is attacking us’

He had also spoken to Abela’s brother, who said that although everything had appeared normal that day, about a month before her murder, his sister had grumbled to him about some non-paying tenants. Two other witnesses, relatives of Bartolo, had told the inspector that they had received a phone call from Carmela Abela at around 9:15am on the day of the murder, telling them to “come here because a black man is attacking us.”

That phone call, as well as Abela’s call to the control room were confirmed from call logs, he said.

After his arrest, Faisal had been taken to hospital for observation before being declared fit for interrogation. He did not cooperate with the police, not even to establish what language he communicated in, however it was noted that while in hospital and with his friends, he was known to speak English.

At the end of today’s sitting, defence lawyer Joe Brincat asked to be told which experts had assisted the magisterial inquiry. Magistrate Vella gave him 24 hours to file an application to contest their nomination.

Lawyers Joe Brincat and Julia Micallef Stafrace are defence counsel.

Prosecutors Kaylie Bonett and Ramon Bonett Sladden are representing the Office of the Attorney General, assisting Police Inspectors Kurt Zahra and Wayne Camilleri.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Franco Debono are parte civile.