One of the men charged with stabbing a man to death in Paceville last December sent a text message to his girlfriend to book him flights out of Malta while she was in the presence of police officers searching their apartment, a court was told on Thursday.
Josef Rivas died at Mater Dei Hospital after being stabbed in Paceville on 5 December, 2022. Three Romanian men, Ilie Constantin, Ionut Iulian Tanase, and Dan-Andrei Tanase, were charged with his murder. They deny the charges.
The compilation of evidence against Rivas’s alleged assassins continued before Magistrate Nadine Lia on Thursday, with several police officers testifying.
Inspector Wayne Camilleri told the court how a day after the murder the three suspects turned themselves in at the St Julian’s police station.
That night, a search was conducted at an apartment where Tanase lived in St Julian’s. The inspector said officers noticed droplets of blood in the common area, so a forensic team was called in. The officers also found a paper kitchen towel soaked with blood, while a soaking hoodie was found in the waste bin, which police thought had been washed before being thrown away.
After the murder, Tanase had rushed to the apartment, changed the sweater, telling the women everything, and then catching a taxi to another location.
The women immediately left the country, and when police arrived at the apartment it was found to be empty.
Tanase then led the police to another apartment in Triq il-Wasliet, Swieqi, where he said he had disposed of the murder weapon by throwing it down a shaft. The weapon was however not found.
Blood traces were also found on switches, in the bathroom, the living room and the kitchen, Camilleri said.
Inspector Brian Xuereb testified that police in St Julian’s had been alerted to reports of a person lying on the ground in Paceville, bleeding heavily. An ambulance was dispatched to the scene and took the victim to hospital.
The inspector found that the victim had been involved in an argument with three men outside a snack bar in Ross Street. A fight then broke out, in which chairs and road signs were used as weapons. The brawl moved to the middle of a nearby roundabout, where the victim fell to the ground. The other men continued to attack Rivas while he was on the ground, he said.
A magisterial inquiry was immediately launched. A Romanian ID card was found in the victim’s possession, who was identified as Joseff Rivas, a British national. His nationality was later confirmed by the British Embassy, said the inspector.
Later that day police received information that the murder suspects owned apartments that were being used for prostitution in Ross Street, Paceville. Rivas was certified dead that day at 5:20pm.
As the investigations progressed, an informant – an ex-girlfriend of the men – was receiving communications directly from one of the suspects, allowing the police to discover that the men were planning to leave Malta. Investigators instructed the informant to cooperate and buy them the tickets, with the intention of arresting the suspects at the airport.
However, the three suspects turned themselves in at St Julian’s police station.
The case was adjourned to May for submissions on a bail request filed by the defendants earlier during the sitting.
Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi, Franco Debono, Charmaine Cherret and Jacob Magri are representing the accused men. The accused are being prosecuted by lawyers Darlene Grima and Kaylie Bonnett from the Attorney General’s office, along with police inspectors Kurt Zahra and Wayne Camilleri. Magistrate Nadine Lia is presiding over the case.