Bulgarian national to be arraigned over fatal stabbing

A 28-year-old Bulgarian national is to be arraigned Wednesday over the murder of Serbian national Dragoljub Kristic, on Tuesday 11 February.

Born in Grocka, Serbia and living in Malta since late last year, Kristic, who worked in the construction industry, was killed in the common area on the first floor of an apartment in Triq il-Merluz, St Paul's Bay, with a single penknife stab to his heart.

The fatal wound was inflicted at around 2:15am by the tenant of the apartment, who hours earlier had invited the Serb to his house.

Addressing a crime conference, Assistant Commissioner Silvio Valletta explained that a Bulgarian suspect and two Macedonian nationals met the Serbian victim on Sunday night, and invited him to continue partying at their apartment. The group had never met their host before.

The loud music carried into the early hours of Tuesday, prompting their irritated landlord to inform his Bulgarian tenant that unless the music is switched off, he would trip the electricity mains. Moments later, as his warnings were ignored, the landlord switched off the apartment's power supply.

The Bulgarian was said to have assumed that it was his guests who switched off the electricity supply. An argument ensued during which the Bulgarian stabbed the victim once with a penknife. Kristic died from a single puncture wound to his heart. Officers retrieved the weapon from inside the premises. The Bulgarian national is expected to face charges of keeping an unlicensed weapon.

The police are still investigating what took place in the time from when the electricity meter went off to the moment the victim was stabbed. While the argument kicked off on the third floor, the victim was killed two floors down, in the common area on the first floor. The police are not ruling out that the victim tried to escape from his aggressor, who caught up with him on the lower level and stabbed him. Investigators are also considering the possibility that one of the Macedonians was involved in the argument.