Zebbiegh murder | Court rejects request for reduced bail

Kenneth Gafà, 39 of Marsa will have to remain at Corradino Prisons under preventative arrest, where he has been kept for the past 23 months, after his arraignment for the murder of his former girlfriend Christine Sammut.

In a decree issued this afternoon by Magistrate Antonio Vella, the court turned down an application by Gafà's lawyers to have bail reduced.

Lawyers Joseph Giglio, Giannella de Marco, Gianluca Caruana Curran and Stephen Tonna who are appearing for Gafà, informed the court last week that although their client was granted bail during a previous sitting, he remained in jail because he could not afford the  €15,000 bail deposit, and so was the personal guarantee set at €25,000 excessive.

They asked the court to review the conditions for Gafà to be granted bail after spending a long time in prison, which exceeds the 20 months at law which is the maximum a person could be held under preventative custody.

Murder and fraud

Kenneth Gafà is charged with murdering his former girlfriend Christine Sammut on December 10, 2010.

Last Tuesday he was also charged with defrauding his victim's father out of €11,800, some months before the murder.

The charge relates to sums of money loaned to Gafà by Christine's father Lino, who died of cancer last August. Taking the witness stand, the victim's brother, James Sammut revealed that his late father had told him to help him recover €11,800 which he loaned to the accused.

"Kenneth Gafà was my sister's boyfriend. He used to hang around my father almost day and night from morning till evening, and I was shocked to learn that my father had loaned him €11,000, which he gave him in cash on the pretext of starting a rabbit farm project," Sammut said.

"My father was a good man, who looked after Gafà's wellbeing, as he was seeing my sister," he said, adding that his father told him that the next day he gave Gafà the money, he simply "disappeared".

According to James Sammut and Police Inspector Maurice Curmi from the Economic Crimes Unit, Gafà, a horse jockey, had left the island when a police report was filed against him only months before Christine Sammut was murdered.

The witness explained that four months before his sister was killed, she had gone to the police asking for action to be taken, but later asked to have the report retracted as the accused had reached a repayment agreement.

Sammut said that together with his father, he had gone with Gafà to a notary in Dingli to make a private agreement for a repayment programme of €100 in monthly instalments for the loan to be repayed.

"But Gafà never paid a cent, and told us that he didn't have a job," Sammut said, adding that from then on he never heard of the accused until his sister was murdered

On camera

Kenneth Gafà also appeared in court this week over the murder case, where  police brought more evidence against him over the murder of Christine Sammut. Footage from a CCTV camera in the square near where Sammut was murdered on December 11, 2010,  revealed how Gafà drove his van next to hers and shoot her through his window.

The footage contradicts the story given to the police by accused Kenneth Gafà, when interrogated soon after the murder.

Moments after his arrest, the once popular horse-jockey had admitted to shooting his former girlfriend in Mgarr, but had never intending to kill her.

Gafà had told police that he had shot at Sammut's van after she allegedly tried to run him over, and thought that she was accompanied by a member of her family.

Inspector Daniel Zammit said that Gafà told him he feared Sammut's family, who allegedly used to threaten him. He claimed to have been overcome by fear and shot at the van without aiming.

But footage collected from the CCTV camera demolished Gafà's story, as it it showed him arriving on site and shooting towards Sammut's van from inside his own van. The murder weapon was never found.

Gafà told investigators that he owed money to Sammut's father and brother and they used to threaten him many times so that he would pay up, after the victim had stopped dating him.

When asked why he had turned up in Mgarr where the victim was, despite the relationship being over, Gafà said that it was a "coincidence" that he went there, because that day he decided to go around the island in search of wooden pallets to break and use the wood for fire.

Inspector Zammit told the Court that all evidence shows that Gafà had intentionally driven to Mgarr to commit the murder, and his version of the victim allegedly trying to run him over does not hold any truth.

"He wanted to kill her, because the footage we have from a CCTV camera shows Gafà driving his van next to the victim's and fired two shots from behind the wheel," Inspector Zammit said, adding that it was not true that Gafà got out of his van and Sammut tried to run him over.

Lawyers Manwel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi are appearing 'Parte Civile' for the Sammut family.