Maria Attard, a Gozitan woman who was found dead in a well on family land on 23 February 2002, was finally laid to rest yesterday, after the police had withheld her body for further investigations, which are believed to be still pending.

Ms Attard’s body was discovered in a well in Ghajn Qamar Street in Xaghra.

An autopsy carried out soon afterwards revealed that she bore signs of manual pressure on her neck.

At the time, investigators were led to believe that she was first murdered and then thrown into the well, which was not full of water. In fact, the autopsy completely ruled out the possibility that death had been caused by drowning.

Police sources who spoke to The Malta Independent yesterday said that the fact that the body had been released for burial did not mean that the case was closed. The police could not give any more details on the stage reached by the investigations.