Updated | Accused in wife’s murder told children in letter he’d kill himself

The prosecution in the trial by jury of Nizar el Gadi, accused of the murder of his estranged wife in 2012 has this afternoon exhibited mobile phone evidence, placing the accused in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene at the time of the murder.

36-year old El-Gadi is being tried for the wilful homicide of lawyer Margaret Mifsud, who was his ex-wife and the mother of his two children, in April 2012.

The jury began on Monday with the prosecution highlighting how El Gadi had changed his version of events. During yestrday’s sitting, the jury was told how the accused was violent towards his estranged wife, and had tried to strangle her on one occasion.

El Gadi took notes in the dock as Inspector Keith Arnaud deconstructed the statements released by the accused during questioning, using CCTV footage and positioning data from mobile phone broadcasts.

The accused had told the police that he had an intimate encounter with the victim in her car near her Birkirkara home at 8pm before she went out for dinner with friends. But this, together with the man’s call profile and location data from his mobile phone, did not fit in with the timeline which he had given.

In fact a top-up request from his phone, made at 7:43pm placed him in the St Julian’s area, not Birkirkara as he had claimed, said the inspector.

Arnaud also exhibited a rental agreement for the accused’s car, which had been leased on the 18 April 2012 in the morning. The accused had told the car company that he had family visiting from Libya. However, it was seen parked near Empire cinema in Bugibba at 0100 on the 19 April.

A number of undeleted messages were found in El Gadi’s Blackberry phone. On 18 April there were a number of messages from the victim, telling him to stay away, that he was breaking the law by contacting her and only to talk to her through her lawyer. His SMSes were pleas for a second chance. He later seemed to concede that they should just be friends. He did not tell police about the harsh messages which he had received from the victim, telling him to stay away, noted the inspector.

The last SMS sent to him by the victim was one where she had informed him that she could not meet him to give him his CV, as she was busy.

Arnaud explained that the police had analysed the strength of WiFi signals in the Xemxija area and compared it with the list of MAC addresses of the connecting devices.

A detailed analysis of CCTV at a petrol station where the accused had claimed to have paid €10 to refuel his rental car and the corresponding transaction records at the service station was painstakingly explained to the jury by Arnaud. He demonstrated that the accused’s claim to have stopped at the petrol station and bought €10 worth of petrol from Pump 5 was not borne out by the evidence.

The jury heard how El Gadi had been a private in the Libyan army, but had refused to answer questions about his military training, other than confirming that he had served for a year. The accused had told police that about a month prior the victim had received a threatening letter from a “black immigrant” who was going to be extradited, but investigations had found no supporting evidence for this claim.

Accused told children in letter he’d kill himself

Earlier in the day the jury heard Arnaud read out a letter, addressed to Mifsud’s children, written by the Libyan, in which he hinted at the possibility of committing suicide out of love for their mother.

Arnaud testified that during a search of the victim’s bedroom by police, officers had found a document written in the victim’s hand in which she described a strangulation attempt by the accused on 24 March 2012.

But in a letter to his children after their mother’s murder, El-Gadi had written: “Whoever told you I murdered your mother is a liar and those who tell you this are doing so because they want to see us apart. Don’t believe a word they say... Do you remember the time you saw your mother and I kiss each other at Pizza Hut? If I commit suicide it is because I love your mother very much.”

Police officers from the cybercrime unit had inspected a laptop and digital camera retrieved from the victim’s bedroom and found images of the victim walking with the two children in Sliema.

The photographs had been taken on an iPhone 4 on 16 April – three days before the murder, said the inspector. The person taking the photo had evidently been following the target, he added. El-Gadi owned an iPhone 4 as well as a Blackberry.

The accused had not been truthful with the police when asked about his whereabouts on the day of the murder, said the inspector, adding that this fact was demonstrated by the position reported by the cell phone towers which relayed his mobile phone’s broadcasts.

El-Gadi had claimed to have been in Bugibba but the signals from his phone showed that he had gone to Xemxija – a fact he had failed to tell the police, Arnaud said. CCTV footage also show the accused driving a different route from that which he had claimed to have followed, said the officer.

“El-Gadi told police he met a Russian woman near Pender Gardens after parking his car near Kavalieri Hotel,” said the inspector.

“He tried to convince her to go to Paceville with him but she declined, saying that people make too many sexual remarks in Paceville. Instead, he convinced her to go somewhere else, to Bugibba. So he went for his car and said he drove up to Bugibba.

“El-Gadi said that while in Bugibba, he told the girl that he wanted to take a CV to a restaurant,” Arnaud said.

Interestingly, during Monday’s session, it emerged that he changed the version of events when he told police who called him up to verify whether Margaret was with him, following a missing person’s report.

“El-Gadi told police, who called him on his phone, that he had seen Margaret last at 8pm on 18 April. He said he had requested his ex- wife to take the CVs, which were saved on her laptop, to the hotel he was staying in but he later changed his story, telling investigators that he had gone to her mother’s residence to collect the CVs in person,” the policeman said.

Arnaud explained that in order to determine whether he had really gone to Bugibba, police had asked El-Gadi to show police exactly what route he had used to arrive at Bugibba and whether he had stopped anywhere else on the way. It turned out that he went to Xemxija as well.

“When we asked him about the fact that he had also gone to Xemxija but had not told us, the accused replied that the police who had been accompanying him as he was showing them the route had made a mistake.

“El-Gadi claimed that he had told them he went to Xemxija. But the police insisted that he never told them this part of the story,” Inspector Arnaud said.

Inspector Arnaud said that items recovered from his cell at the lockup indicated that the accused had made an abortive suicide attempt. El-Gadi was subsequently taken to Mount Carmel Hospital. He was released from the hospital six days after the murder and was arrested, Inspector Arnaud said.

Judge Antonio Mizzi is presiding over the trial. Lawyers Philip Galea Farrugia and Giannella Busutil are prosecuting. Lawyer Martin Testaferata Moroni Viani is defending the accused, whilst lawyer Kathleen Grima and Arthur Azzopardi are appearing as parte civile for the victim’s family.