Man sentenced to six years for complicity to murder
Charlot Zahra A 33-year-old San Gwann man, Carmel Vella, was sentenced to six years in jail after a jury found him guilty with eight votes to one of complicity in a crime that was going to take place at L-Ahrax tal-Mellieħa against his wife.
Vella had pleaded not guilty and insisted that he turned down a request to kill the woman for €23,000.
Jurors took only five hours to reach a guilty verdict. The court had heard that Vella and another man lured Patricia Attard to L-Aħrax in Mellieħa in January 2004 so that they could push her off a cliff.
The plan fell through when the woman refused to go near the edge.
The trial against Vella was not about the actual murder of Patricia Attard six years ago at Ta’ Qali, but about his alleged complicity in an attempted murder off l-Aħrax tal-Mellieha to eliminate Attard.
According to the bill of indictment, Vella had been charged that in the previous weeks, he conspired with Josef Grech, who also worked as a driver with victim’s company, to throw Attard off a cliff against a payment of €23,000.
However, the victim was found shot dead in her mini-van at Ta’ Qali two months later, on 14 February 2004.
The other man, Josef Grech, who also worked a driver with the victim, had pleaded not guilty of with the actual murder and was currently undergoing separate criminal proceedings
Attard had been killed on the night between 13 and 14 February 2004 with a single gunshot wound.
The victim had been found in a van which she used as a driver, in a hidden area in Ta’ Qali, after Police from the Mobile Squad had been performing patrols there.
Attard, who hailed from Hamrun, was 55 years old and worked as a driver in the family business.
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