Abner Aquilina could not contain his laughter in court on Wednesday, as it heard testimonies about how he boasted to fellow prison inmates about how he murdered Paulina Dembska.

Polish student Dembska was violently sexually assaulted and murdered in a Sliema garden in January 2021 in a case which shook the country.  Aquilina was arrested soon after and confessed to police officers who arrested him that Satan had ordered him to kill Dembska.

He was subsequently charged but pleaded not guilty to the murder.

Inspector Jonathan Ransley on Wednesday testified to the courts how in January 2023, the Birkirkara district police were approached by a prisoner who wanted to discuss the Abner Aquilina case.

This prisoner explained that he used to share a cell with Aquilina, who once even left human excrement in this prisoner’s sugar.

The prisoner also said that Aquilina used to boast about how he killed Dembska, and said that Aquilina said that he had strangled Dembska with a bandage, sexually assaulted her with a key and ejaculated on her stomach.

The description is in-line with the findings of the autopsy on Dembska, and the fact that Aquilina was seen moments before the murder holding a key between his finger, the prosecution pointed out.

The prisoner also told police that Aquilina had told him that he was going to enter into a plea deal with the police so that he is jailed for 20 years.  Ransley told the court that this latter allegation was totally false.

Aquilina also told cellmates that he knew Dembska and that on the day of murder he had quarrelled with his girlfriend but hadn’t killed her because her own father would have killed him, the court heard.

The court heard that he had also reportedly scribbled details concerning the murder on his cell walls, but when investigators ordered a search they discovered that the walls had been recently whitewashed.

The court also heard how Aquilina exposed his genitals to a female police officer who was searching his cell, telling her: “What are you looking for? Why not seize my penis as evidence because that’s what was inside her.”

The search was recorded on police bodycams.

Inmates who shared a cell with Aquilina had also heard him vow to kill more people once he is released from jail, with them once overhearing him saying that he would kill his mother – who was present in the courtroom – and his lawyer.

A diary which was seized during the cell search contained statements such as “Abner the chosen one” and “bad things happening to cat feeders”, the court heard.

Dembska was known to spend time feeding stray cats at Sliema’s Independence Gardens, which is where she was murdered.

As Ransley testified and recounted the details, Aquilina on more than one occasion broke out into hysterical laughter.

The prosecution asked the court to minute the accused’s behaviour, but Aquilina’s defence lawyer Mario Mifsud brought up his client’s insanity plea: “What do you want to minute? That he’s insane, as confirmed by three psychiatrists?,”

Mifsud said that Aquilina needed to receive treatment before he could face judicial proceedings, and noted that if he had said that he would kill a lawyer then the prosecution should inform the Chamber of Advocates for the protection of its members.

Magistrate Marseanne Farrugia is presiding, with Attorney General lawyers Anthony Vella and Darlene Grima prosecuting.

Lawyers Stefano Filletti and Lara Dimitrijevic are appearing parte civile.