A young teacher accused of the murder of the student who became his lover has pleaded guilty of the wilful homicide of Lisa Maria Zahra, daughter of the hotelier Tony Zahra.

He was sentenced to 20 years and six months in jail, and was fined €22,000 in costs. 

Zahra, 15, died in an apparent suicide pact when she fell from Dingli cliffs in March 2014.

The sensational case saw Erin Tanti, 28, then her boyfriend, jailed for the murder, despite having been rescued from beneath the cliff during the search for the two persons.

Tanti was indicted for wilful homicide, assisting a person to commit suicide, participation in sexual activities with a vulnerable, underage person to whom he was an authority figure, as well as creating and possession of indecent images of the underage girl.

Tanti’s trial by jury was due to start on Friday in the court of Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera , but as the trial was about to begin and before the jury had been empanelled, he filed a last-minute admission in order to receive a mitigation in punishment.

During the compilation of evidence, it had emerged that the former teacher had been in a sexual relationship with the 15-year-old victim. Zahra was described as a promising young student, passionate about drama, but it was also revealed that she had been going through a period of depression and had attempted self-harm on a number of occasions. Despite the turbulence of her adolescence, she had done well in her O-Levels and had expressed the wish to study drama abroad after completing Sixth Form education.

Despite being her teacher and the fact that Zahra was a vulnerable person, Tanti had embarked on a romantic and sexual relationship with her, whilst doing his best to keep the illicit relationship under wraps.

A keen-eyed groundsman at the Zahra family home, however, had noticed Tanti’s green Mazda 323 spending the night and informed Zahra’s father, who cut short a business trip abroad.

The girl’s father had instructed the groundsman and Lisa Maria’s brother to have the 15-year-old stay at her brother’s house and to seize her mobile phone.

But when Lisa Maria Zahra was informed that her father and brother were aware of the relationship she became angry and refused to go sleep at her brother’s house. She went to her bedroom and called Tanti to tell him the news.

Tanti immediately asked her if they knew he was her teacher and whether they had contacted the police or the school. “Instead of trying to calm her down and try to face the situation and her family, as was his duty in the circumstances as an adult, teacher and boyfriend… the accused Erin Tanti sent her a message saying that if she was going to confirm to him that her family knew his identity, he was going to kill himself.”

Lisa Maria, in her agitated and the vulnerable state of the tragico-romantic emotions of a 15-year-old in love with Tanti, answered that she had no reason to live if he were to commit suicide, and that they should both do so together, according to the Bill of Indictment.

The indictment states that Tanti had been unable to accept the fact that he had been caught sleeping with a pupil and would end up jobless and branded a paedophile, so he had come up with a desperate plan. “The plan was clear: in that night between the 18th and 19th March 2014, Lisa Maria Zahra had to die, and he had to escape.”

Tanti had bought several packets of aspirin and a bottle of whisky and had arranged to pick up the girl later that night. “What he hadn’t told her, however, was that aside from the aspirin and the whisky, that night (in which he was supposed to be committing suicide with her) he was also taking with him around €2,500 in cash, a number of cheques as well as his passport.”

He had driven her to Dingli cliffs from where, at 4 am on 19 March, 2014, Zahra jumped from a height of 32 metres to her death.

Later that day, from the bottom of the cliffs, Tanti had managed to draw the attention of passers-by who, in turn, called the emergency services. Unlike Zahra, Tanti had survived with injuries “certainly incompatible with a 13-storey fall.”

In the moments before her fatal leap, “when he saw her in that extremely vulnerable state, he did nothing to help or comfort or calm her down or open her eyes. Rather, he gave her whisky and aspirin.”

Lawyers Michael and Lucio Sciriha were defence counsel.

Assistant Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia and lawyer Anne Marie Cutajar appeared for the Attorney General’s office. Lawyer Reuben Farrugia.

Bail, university and realtor

Tanti was finally granted bail on 23 June 2015 subject to a €20,000 deposit and €50,000 personal guarantee, and on condition that he lives with his mother and submits himself to the care of psychiatrist Maria Axiaq.

He had enrolled himself in the University of Malta to read for a bachelor’s degree, and for some time worked as a realtor.

A Finnish criminal who shared a jail cell at the Mount Carmel forensic unit with Erin Tanti, had also said that Tanti told him that he and Lisa Marie Zahra did not jump together from Dingli Cliffs. The witness said that Tanti had told him that the couple could not live together if not in the afterlife, because the girl was under age. “Nobody would approve. When someone says something like that, it’s tragic.”

He said Tanti told him that he had saved up money to leave the country, possibly for Ireland.

In the wake of the murder, Zahra’s family set up the Lisa Maria Zahra Foundation, for the protection of children.