Fabio Psaila charged in court with attempted murders after month-long manhunt

Super fugitive Fabio Psaila was remanded into custody this afternoon after he pleaded not guilty to the attempted murders of PC Kenneth Ciangura and PC Kurt Gauci on 30 June.

28 December 2010, 12:00am

2 min read

36-year-old Psaila, of St Venera, had given himself up on Boxing Day – after almost a month on the run. He was followed to the police HQ and accompanied by police officers. He gave himself up at 7pm, and was later escorted to the hospital.

Psaila also pleaded not guilty to the attempted hold-up on the HSBC headquarters in Qormi on the same day and of attempting to steal more €2,300 from Michael Mizzi in Attard on 3 December. He was charged with holding Mizzi against his will.

In all, Psaila pleaded not guilty to 27 charges. The charges he is facing include the theft of a gun from a police constable, holding a police constable and two other people against their will, committing a crime using a weapon, damaging a number of police cars during the attempted hold up (during the aborted HSBC HQ heist), being in possession of a weapon without a licence, firing a weapon in a habited area, stealing cars, and also making a false declaration.

He was also charged with committing crimes during the operative period of a suspended sentence and while under a conditional discharge. Psaila made no request for bail.

Psaila turned himself in still injured from shots fired by Silvio Mizzi, the son of jeweller Michael Mizzi, during a hold-up on 8 December with Darren Debono, 33, aka ‘it-Topo’ – the latter, a suspect in the botched HSBC heist of June 2010, had been out on bail.

Mizzi is said to have injured Psaila with the firearm he was carrying, which he managed to disarm in a tussle with Psaila. Debono was also injured by the firearm.

Police had believed that Psaila had disguised himself as a woman. He is said to have lived for some time with Tracy a transvestite from Marsa.

In November 2003, Psaila was sentenced to 100 months’ imprisonment by a Sicilian court in Catania on the trafficking of 4kgs of cocaine and a kilo of marijuana.

On 17 September 2008, he was arraigned on assault of two police constables, for which he was released on a €2,000 bail – his defence counsel as David Gatt, who is being charged as the mastermind of the Balzan HSBC branch heist of 2008, the botched HSBC heist back in June, and the Attard jewellery hold-up.

After turning himself in, Fabio Psaila was immediately arrested and interrogated by senior investigators.

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In spite of the pseudo Mafia discourse the reality is that Gatt (unless he is one himself) seems to have been working with a group of utter morons with a low IQ - they actually failed in three consecutive well planned (?) robberies - with two of them getting shot by the very gun they were holding this having been taken from their hands. No wander the press (or the police?) are saying Psaila disguised himself a a woman when he appeared with a well grown beard. More importantly - if the same LOCAL gang was ultimately involved in serial heist attempts (possibly including the Casino di Venzia one) the question one should ask is what information did the police really have on the gang? Would they have been closing in on the gang if none of the gang members had been wounded in the last couple of botched robberies? The impression is that the police were closing in on Psaila (nearly a month after the notorious criminal is wounded on a tiny island), the reality is that the three arrested people today are in this position because one was openly betrayed by another policeman(for his warped reasons following a belated revelation) and two had gun wounds. Let's face it, you do not really have to be brainy to have these three in your custody. And beyond this???