Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona yesterday declared that sufficient evidence had been gathered for a bill of indictment to be issued against Silvio Mangion, who is being accused of the 1986 murder of Maria Stella Magrin in Cospicua.

Testifying during the compilation of evidence against Mangion, who is already serving a prison term for another murder, police inspector Chris Pullicino explained that two other men who were allegedly Mangion’s accomplices are now dead: one of them died a year ago while the other died in the past few weeks.

Inspector Pullicino said Ms Magrin’s murder took place on 26 October 1986. It was former President Ugo Mifsud Bonnici who informed the police that there was a woman calling for help from inside her residence. When the police arrived on the scene, they found the elderly woman lying in a pool of blood. She was already dead, he said, adding that there were no signs of break-ins at her house. The victim died of a number of stab wounds. A number of people had been arrested but court proceedings had not been instituted against any of them, he said.

Inspector Pullicino said that, in the past months, he had received confidential information about this murder. He was told that Silvio Mangion had murdered the elderly woman, along with two other people. Mangion is serving a 21-year jail term for the murder of Frenc Cassar in Zejtun and is presently facing criminal proceedings for the murder of yet another elderly woman, Rozina Zammit in Safi.

He explained that Mangion at first denied that he had any connection with the murder of Maria Stella Magrin but during the course of the interrogation, he admitted to the investigators that he had committed the crime during a robbery along with two other people. He also told police that it was one of these two people who asked him to assist him in the commission of the crime.

Inspector Pullicino said that during the interrogation, Mangion mentioned a man and his uncle as the two people who had participated in the robbery. He told police that when they rang the doorbell to the elderly woman’s house in Cospicua, she opened the door and they pushed her inside. They asked her to give them the money she had in the house. In all they stole around Lm6,000, divided the money and took Lm2,000 each.

Mangion continued to tell police that after the robbery, he and one of the other men stabbed the woman with a knife they each had and then fled the scene. He added that he had given this man the blood-stained clothes and knife when they shared the money they had stolen from the woman’s house.

After receiving this information, investigators proceeded to arrest one of the other two men – the other had already died – in connection with this case after Mangion had mentioned his name. At first, Inspector Pullicino said, he denied his involvement in the case but later admitted that he had been present during the robbery but insisted that he had not killed the elderly woman. He told police that he and his uncle ran away as soon as they saw Mangion stabbing the woman.

Inspector Pullicino said one of the men died last year while the second one died in the past few weeks.

Following Mr Pullicino’s testimony, magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona declared that there was sufficient evidence for a bill of indictment to be issued against Mangion and, as a result, the files were sent to the Attorney General’s office.