Updated 2 | Bomb attack mastermind was localised by mobile phone, identified by witnesses

Jurors hear how Ronnie Azzopardi ‘is-Sufu’ was nailed through cell phone movements, eyewitnesses and a voluntary statement by man who claimed he was approached to carry out ‘murder’ of a woman.

Jurors presiding over a trial by jury of a man who stands accused of murdering an innocent woman, the serious injury of another and the attempted murder of four others, including three young children in Zejtun seven years ago, heard details of how investigators nailed Ronnie Azzopardi, 41 of Cospicua, through his mobile phone movements, and eyewitness accounts.

Azzopardi, also known as 'Is-Sufu', is charged with murdering Angela Bondin, 48, seriously injuring 60-year-old Tessie Grima, and with the attempted murder of Mary Rose Cassar and her sons Jesmar, 7, Jean Leon, 4, and 20-month old Kevin.

The case goes back to 18 June, 2005 on the eve of St. Catherine's feast in Zejtun, when the accused allegedly drove into Triq il-Madonna tal-Ħniena, descended from a car and placed a garbage bag containing a bomb on the pavement close to a chapel.

He was spotted planting the bag by Tessie Grima and her husband Joseph Grima as they were decorating their roof, in preparation for the band march.

Tessie Grima had called out to the accused not to throw rubbish there as there would be no refuse collection before Monday. But he ignored her, got into the car and drove off leaving the bag behind him.

A few minutes after, Tessie Grima went out into the street and dragged the bag into a garage across the road to keep it out of sight, meeting Angela Bondin, a friend who happened to be in the area. The bag exploded while the two women stopped fro a chat, seriously injuring them both. Bondin succumbed to her injuries a few days later, while Grima survived only to be maimed for life.

Investigations

Superintendent Carmelo Bartolo from the Criminal Investigations Department took the witness stand this morning and gave details about the investigations which eventually led to the arrest and prosecution of Ronnie Azzopardi.

Bartolo explained how he noticed a woman, Mary Rose Cassar, whom he knew didn't live there, on the site of the explosion. He said that he knew Cassar to be the partner of a man who had been murdered in 2001, and after approaching her, she had spontaneously told him that she was very worried about the explosion

She said that she was under constant threat by Ronnie Azzopardi, who was the brother of her former partner Jason Azzopardi, who wanted a Mercedes Benz she had inherited from her deceased partner.

She gave a detailed description of what Ronnie Azzopardi looked like, which in fact had matched the description provided by Tessi Grima's husband Joseph, who had also witnessed the accused placing the garbage bag in the street.

Once arrested, Ronnie Azzopardi denied ever having been in Zejtun that morning, and swore that he did not move further away from his hometown Bormla.

But while he provided details of the persons he met, Police found discrepancies in what he told them, and were stuck over placing Azzopardi as the man behind the wheel of a blue-grey car, originally thought to be a Hyundai Pony, which the Grimas thought was the vehicle used by the man who planted the bomb.

New evidence came in to suggest that the car was in fact a Seat Toledo, with a missing hubcap and a sun-visor sticker across the front windscreen. CCTV footage taken from the HSBC bank at Zejtun placed the car at the time of the incident that day, and investigations revealed that the car was in fact sold to Azzopardi's partner.

After three interrogations, Azzopardi voluntarily produced the car, which tallied with the pictures taken from HSBC Bank's CCTV camera.

Evidence

Further evidence was brought to the police by a social worker, who asked to see the police on behalf of a certain Matthew Pace, who revealed that he had been approached by Ronnie Azzopardi to murder a woman, identified as Mary Rose Cassar.

Pace had later confirmed under oath during the investigations that Azzopardi had approached him to carry out the murder. He was to procure him the weapon, provide transport and also pay him a night with Cassar herself, the intended target, given that the woman was involved in prostitution.

According to Pace, Azzopardi wanted him to orient himself with the house Cassar was living in.

But while the investigators failed to place Azzopardi at the scene of the crime while looking into his mobile phone movements, it transpired that all those he had spoken to on the day said that they had spoken to him on another number ending in '45'.

This led police to understand that Azzopardi was using another phone, which later led police to discover that - although unregistered - was being used by the accused. Further investigations with the cell phone provider placed the phone at Zejtun at the same time of the explosion.

Target

Mary Rose Cassar was indeed the target of the bombing, who every Saturday would visit her mother in the vicinity of where the bomb was placed.

Cassar would take her children to spend the day with their grandmother and was shocked to discover that had she been there earlier, she would have been the victim of the attack.

The police superintendent said that the bomb was packed with bullets and a fire extinguisher, which became lethal projectiles. The blast pushed out two stone courses in the garage wall, while embedding a letter box into a stone wall which was across the street.

The trial, which is presided by Mr. Justice Michael Mallia, continues this afternoon.

Lawyer Joe Mifsud is appearing as defence counsel, while Philip Galea Farrugia and Maurizio Cordina are prosecuting on behalf of the Attorney General.

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Man on trial for murdering woman who inherited his brother’s Mercedes........ wrong headline as the woman who inherited the Mercedes is still alive and it was an Attempted murder on her. A neighbour was murdered in fact.