While most were tucking in to New Year’s Day lunch, four Moroccan men marked the start of the year with a bold attempt to flee to Malta.
A Turkish Airlines flight travelling from Istanbul to Marrakesh made an emergency landing at Luqa airport after a Moroccan passenger said he was feeling unwell.
As airport staff were preparing to disembark the passenger and army officials were waiting at the front of the aircraft, four other passengers seized the opportunity. They snuck towards the rear of the plane, opened the doors, jumped and sprinted towards the perimeter of the airport.
Fouad el Sellah (inset, left) and Mohamed Lazaar (inset, right) are still at large after escaping a Turkish Airlines aircraft at Luqa airport on January 1. Inset: Malta Police ForceEleven seconds later, AFM officials spotted them, and the chase was on.
All four men managed to flee the airport but two of them were arrested hours later and deported, alongside the other passenger who claimed he was sick.
Fouad el Sellah, 26, and Mohamed Lazaar, 43, seem to have been luckier. Almost a year later, both men are still at large.
Drug heist at army barracks
In the early hours of the morning on February 23, 132kg of cannabis resin went missing from the Armed Forces of Malta’s barracks in Safi. The cannabis was part of a larger drug seizure that had occurred months earlier.
The incident was announced by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri who also offered his resignation, which was not accepted.
The alleged theft occurred right under the army’s nose: an administrative inquiry found that a soldier responsible for minding 35 CCTV cameras at the barracks was busy watching a film while the alleged heist was taking place.
Two of the accused in the AFM drugs heist, Yousef Essesi and Sean Attard, photographed during their arraignment.The police tracked down the suspects using CCTV footage and eventually six people were arraigned in connection to the alleged heist. All pleaded not guilty.
The police recouped 85kg of the stolen drugs, but the rest are still unaccounted for. The accused are out on bail as the case continues.
Sperm-smuggling operation?
In May, Times of Malta revealed that Erin Tanti – the convicted killer of Lisa Maria Zahra – may have impregnated his partner from behind bars through artificial insemination.
This news sparked outrage from Zahra’s family who demanded answers.
Tanti also broke silence saying that the Corradino authorities were aware of his desire to have a baby with his partner and twice permitted a medical vehicle inside the prison to transport his sperm to a fertility clinic.
Erin Tanti in 2014, when he was charged with the murder of Lisa Maria Zahra. Photo: Matthew MirabelliA police investigation was carried out and this led to Tanti, his partner Marisa Gallo, and St James Hospital owner Josie Muscat being charged with carrying out the unauthorised medically assisted procreation.
All pleaded not guilty.
Four dead in three shootings
The first alleged murder of the year occurred on the morning of June 29 when headlines broke that a man was killed in a “road rage” shooting in Bidnija.
Fifty-three-year-old businessman Jean Paul Busuttil was involved in a minor traffic collision on Triq il-Konkos with Mohamed Hamdan, a Libyan national born in Syria but living in Bidnija.
According to police testimony, an argument escalated and Hamdan fled the scene only to return a few minutes later with a gun and fired shots at Busuttil.
Hamdan pleads not guilty to the murder.
Jean Paul Busuttil (inset) was shot dead in Bidnija following a traffic incident. Photo: Facebook/Jonathan BorgBusuttil’s wife and mother-in-law witnessed the shooting. She recalled seeing her husband still standing after being shot, “but the look in his eyes was gone”.
A month later, news broke of a double murder in the limits of Rabat following a suspected family feud over a plot of land.
Anthony Agius, 57, and 51-year-old Dennis Mifsud were found dead sitting in separate vehicles in a field in Baħrija on July 29.
The suspect in the murder was identified as 72-year-old pensioner Karmenu (Carmelo) Ciantar, also known as Id-Durga, who was in a relationship with the mother of Mifsud and the mother-in-law of Agius.
Police quickly tracked Ciantar down and arrested him at 8.30pm in the parking lot of PAMA supermarket in Mosta after he had just eaten at KFC, a court heard.
He was charged with the double murder days later and pleaded not guilty.
The last alleged killing happened on Independence Day, which was disrupted as news of a shooting at Vittoriosa spread. Thirty-three-year-old Kyle Mifsud suffered a single shot in the stomach and died during the night at Mater Dei Hospital.
Pensioner Salvino Mangion, 71, was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with the murder of Mifsud. He pleads not guilty.
Ta’ Maksar gang finally convicted
Years after the 2015 and 2017 murders of lawyer Carmel Chircop and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the trial of four members of the Ta’ Maksar criminal gang accused of their involvement in the murders kicked off on April 24.
After a gruelling six-week-long trial that recalled the horrifying scenes of the murders, the jury found Robert Agius, Jamie Vella, Adrian Agius and George Degiorgio guilty, and they were all jailed for life.
Robert Agius and Vella were found guilty of complicity in the car-bomb assassination of Caruana Galizia, while Vella, Adrian Agius and George Degiorgio were found guilty of their involvement in the murder of Chircop.
The Ta’ Maksar gang: George Degiorgio, Adrian Agius, Jamie Vella and Robert Agius. Photo: Chris Sant FournierApart from the 157 witnesses who testified, including victims’ families, members of the FBI and a former government minister, it was the testimony of hitman-turned- state witness Vince Muscat that helped secure the convictions.
Caruana Galizia’s family said the verdict brought them “a step closer to justice”.
Attention now turns to the trial of alleged mastermind Yorgen Fenech, who was granted bail earlier this year.
The cat killer of Sliema
Pictures of dead cats in Sliema circulated on social media in June, quickly fuelling rumours of a serial cat killer. Times of Malta later shared CCTV footage of one of the cat killings that took place on Triq San Karlu.
Investigations were launched by the Animal Welfare Department and the police. A month later, Okamura Satoshi was arrested and admitted to luring cats with treats and killing them.
Okamura Satoshi admitted killing cats in Sliema. Photo: Chris Sant FournierThe case sparked widespread public outrage from animal welfare advocates who called for the maximum sentence to be imposed on Satoshi.
He was sentenced to two years in prison but the appeals court recently annulled this sentence on a technicality and sent the case back for re-sentencing.
The homeless get criminalised
This year, Malta’s police force started to carry out mass arrests on homeless people by leveraging an antiquated law dating back to 1854 and charging them with living “an idle and vagrant life” – in effect, with being homeless. Others were also charged with begging.
The police carried out raids in a number of localities to arrest homeless people. In some cases they appeared early in the morning to arrest people who were sleeping rough.
Two homeless people sleeping rough. Photos: Marc Galdes/Matthew MirabelliThe arrests sparked outrage from NGOs and the church. YMCA told Times of Malta that news of the arrests has scared off the homeless as it noticed that attendance at its drop-in centre had halved.
The Church’s justice and peace commission hit out at the legal system saying the arraignments were “not justice but public humiliation” and that they were not solving the problem.
But Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri defended the arrests, saying the police would assist people in need but would not tolerate behaviour that caused people to fear for public safety.