The Serbian woman who is being charged with the deaths of two UK pensioners had filmed the victims as they insisted on not going to the hospital when they fell ill. A court heard today how the police managed to extract videos of the woman ‘interrogating’ the elderly man while in bed.

Appearing before Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona, prosecuting officer Fabian Fleri took to the stand to testify while the accused, Dragana Mijalkovic, entered the hall weeping.

Dragana Mijalkovic is pleading not guilty to killing David Grant, 68, and Neville Ayers, 78, through negligence. Her request for bail was denied.

The two men were found dead in Ms Mijalkovic’s St Paul’s Bay apartment and the deaths had initially been ruled as natural but after recent developments during a CID investigation the woman was charged with the deaths.

The prosecuting officer said that on 12 October 2015 at around 8pm, the accused went to the Qawra police station to inform them that she had called an ambulance some 30 minutes earlier to assist a person who had lost consciousness in her apartment. The police and the ambulance arrived at the apartment and found Mr Neville Ayers, 78-year-old British national, on the floor. His body was lying on the floor between a wardrobe and the bed.

The police inspector confirmed that the man’s pulse could not be felt and was later certified dead by a doctor. When asked by the Magistrate to describe the state in which the body was found, Mr Fleri said the man had bruise marks on his elbow and wrist.

Upon investigation, the police found out that the woman’s passport permit in Malta had expired by a number of years. The police grew suspicious when investigations showed that some nine months earlier, another elderly man, David Grant, had died in a similar way in that same apartment.

Mr Fleri said that according to the autopsy, the man had died of asphyxia.

Some €1,700 were found in the apartment. When asked to explain this during the interrogation, the woman had said that most of that money was won at gambling. This was later confirmed through an email sent by Easy Bet showing that the woman had won some €900.

The prosecution then presented the court with CDs containing videos of the accused being interviewed by the police.

The prosecution said that the woman’s laptop and IPad were taken by the authorities so that they could extract any photos or videos of the victims. They did find some videos of the two victims.

The prosecution said that the police managed to find at least seven videos which were captured by the accused in which she is ‘interrogating’ the elderly man. In one video, the man was filmed while on his back on the floor. She was asking him whether he wanted to go to the hospital while he uttered ‘no’.

In one video, she asks the man if he loves her and whether he wants to go back to the UK. During the interrogation, the woman confirmed that she had taken her videos. When asked to explain why she felt the need to do so, she told the police she “did not want to be blamed for anything.”

On a fourth interrogation, the woman kept on insisting that the man was healthy.

A Maltese couple and a man from Bulgaria, who live in the same block of flats, had told the police that the woman would leave the man locked inside while she went out to run some errands.

While under interrogation, the police said she knew exactly what medication did the victim take, with the dose and time that this medicine should be taken, even though she had no prior nursing experience.

Recounting what Mijalkovic had said during the interrogation, the prosecution explained in some vivid detail as to how the woman used to deal with the victim.

According to her statement, Mr Ayers could not relieve himself for more than three days. They went to a pharmacy who suggested the man is given some suppositories to solve the issue. The victim did not want to take the medication.

After a couple of days, the situation changed completely. Mr Ayers would need to use the bathroom every hour. The situation worsened so much that according to the accused, she had decided to put on nappies on the man because he could not control his bodily functions.

When asked to explain the bruises which the police found on the man’s arm, the accused said the man had fallen while walking in B’Kara.

She had kept on insisting that the man did not want to go to the hospital and she had filmed the victim saying it.

On the same day which ended up at the Qawra police station, the flat neighbours complained that the old man was constantly using the bathroom because the apartments shared one common toilet.

After some two hours inside the bathroom, the accused took the person out and put him on a chair. She then put him resting in bed. According to her statement to the police, it was at that point when the man must have fallen as he was trying to move.

According to police correspondence with the Serbian authorities, the accused had faced charges of fraud in the past while in her home country.

During their investigation, the police had found a wallet which belonged to the victim. Inside were the man’s credit cards and health insurance cards.

According to the prosecution, David Grant, the first victim, died of pulmonary edema. As for Mr Ayers, the cause of death is not concluded but autopsy shows the man died asphyxiated.

The 45-year-old Serbian woman is being charged with the murder of the two British pensioners who were found dead in her St Paul's Bay apartment just months apart.

According to news reports, including in the British press, Ms Mijalkovic would strike up a relationship with the elderly men, ask them to move in with her and make them pay for everything. 

Inspectors James Grech and Fabian Fleri prosecuted while lawyer YanikaBugeja is defending the accused.