Richard Spiteri, who is 33 years old and is known as “Racquela” and 29-year-old Natal Bonello, were accused of stealing around Lm7,000 from 65-year-old Carmelo Gialanze.

Mr Gialanze, who lives in Australia, said that while on holiday in Malta, he was on his way to his sister’s house when he stopped to buy cigarettes at Blue Star, a confectionery in Sliema.

“I had just left my niece’s house after I picked up the Maltese money she had changed for me,” said Mr Gialanze. “I had put the money in envelopes and kept them in my hand as I went into the Blue Star to buy cigarettes.”

The witness told the court that after he bought the cigarettes he got into his car and put the envelopes with the money on the empty passenger seat. “As I was about to start my car, a woman stopped me because she said there was a cat underneath it,” said Mr Gialanze. As soon as he saw this “woman” holding a cat in her arms he thought the way was clear when she warned him there was another cat under his car, said the victim.

“I got out of the car to see where this cat was and bumped into another woman,” Mr Gialanze said. When he got back into his car, he said, the envelopes containing the money were missing and he ran back into the confectionery to ask if anyone had seen the two women, as he said he was convinced that they had something to do with his missing money.

A man in the shop told him: “I know who those two are. They are not women, they are men.” This man wrote the men’s names and addresses on a piece of paper which Mr Gialanze took to Sliema police station where he said the investigations into these two men began.

The two men are currently under house arrest.

The court was presided over by magistrate Lawrence Quintano. Inspector Anglu Caruana prosecuted while Dr Franco Debono appeared for the accused.