Uzbek burglar jailed for three and a half years

A burglar who stole thousands of euros worth of jewellery and electronics from a rented apartment in St. Julian’s has been jailed for three and a half years.

48-year-old Uzbek national Zaynitdin Abdusalamov had been accused of having broken into an apartment in St. Julian's used by the director of an aviation marketing company in March 2013, and helping himself to valuables.

The solitary charge was aggravated by the means employed by the burglar, the value of the items stolen, as well as the place and time at which the crime took place.

Scene of crime officers had found the burglar's finger and palm prints and had kept them on file, because no matches were found in the police's database.

During Abdusalamov’s arraignment, inspector Fabian Fleri had told the court that the Uzbek national had recently been sentenced to 15 months in prison by a Gozitan court for a separate burglary. His fingerprints had been recorded upon his admission to the prison, as per normal procedure, and found to match those on file for the 2013 break-in.

Despite this, Abdusalamov denied the charges, saying his fingerprints might have ended up inside the flat when he had been shown around while looking for an apartment to rent.

But the court noted that the apartment in question had been rented out since 2011, two years before the break-in.

The man's palm prints were not found on the door handle, but on several parts of the door, including the inside, indicating that he had forced it open.

The court observed that had, for the sake of the argument, he ended up inside the apartment to wait for the occupant to give him a telephone number, all the fingerprints and their positions made even less sense.

The court said it was not convinced that Abdusalamov had been truthful in his testimony. Amongst other things he had offered “not even the slightest explanation for the fingerprints on the inside of a door of an apartment where he could not have legitimately been." 

He was jailed for 42 months, the court also suggesting the Principal Immigration Officer consider his removal from the islands after finishing his sentence.