Raya Sellami Zammit keeps a picture of her ultrasound scan by her bedside as a reminder of her “terrible mistake”.

No foetus was present in the gestational sac of a woman who last Monday admitted in court to committing an abortion, according to an ultrasound report drafted by the specialist.

Raya Sellami Zammit, a 30-year-old Tunisian woman, was sentenced to a suspended jail term after she admitted swallowing a concoction of pills with the intention of committing an abortion two weeks earlier.

Her friend Soumia Mansour, who provided the drugs, also received a suspended sentence.

But according to foetal specialist Naged Megally, who carried out the ultrasound on October 27 – two weeks before Ms Zammit decided to take the pills – the scan showed an empty gestational sac. There was no baby within her.

“I never saw a foetus inside the sac. I told her she will have a spontaneous miscarriage and my ultrasound confirms that,” Dr Megally told The Sunday Times of Malta.

According to ultrasound documents which Ms Zammit showed this newspaper, the ultrasound-based diagnosis was that she had a “missed miscarriage” or what is also known as a blighted ovum.

A blighted ovum occurs when a fertilised egg attaches itself to the uterine wall but the embryo fails to develop. The placenta can continue to grow and support itself without a baby for a short time, and pregnancy hormones can continue to rise, which leads a woman to believe she is still pregnant.

Ms Zammit, who has been living in Malta for a decade, is married to a Maltese but the two have been living apart for the past three years. She is raising their seven-year-old daughter alone and began a relationship with another Maltese man around a year ago.

“We broke up and on October 23, my pregnancy test was positive. I was shocked but the baby was conceived out of love,” Ms Zammit said.

I wasn’t thinking properly – I was in a state of panic

Five weeks into the pregnancy, she started bleeding heavily as she drove to hospital. Dr Megally told her that she will miscarry.

“For four days I kept bleeding. But when the bleeding eventually stopped, my breasts still felt sore. I visited Dr Megally again and upon performing an ultrasound, he said he wasn’t seeing a baby inside me. But then he tried a different form of ultrasound and said he heard some sort of a heartbeat, indicating the baby was still there.”

However, Dr Megally insisted with this newspaper that he never detected a foetal heart.

“Dr Megally told me I would miscarry. I was heartbroken,” she continued.

“I was terrified that I will give birth to a stillborn or that my child will be severely disabled. I wasn’t thinking properly – I was in a state of panic.

“I am already raising a daughter without a father – how could I raise a severely disabled child without a father? I have no family in Malta. Looking back, I am extremely sorry. It will haunt me for the rest of my life. My boyfriend, whom I am now back with, also took some of the blame. He told me I would never have taken those pills if he had supported me during those dark moments.”

Ms Zammit said a Moroccan friend had told her that she could easily get rid of the perceived baby in her womb by taking a concoction of pills.

Ms Zammit kept the pills at home for 10 days, but in a particularly fragile moment on November 9 decided to take them. She swallowed five pills and ingested another five intravaginally. She was overcome by an excruciating wave of pain and was taken to Mater Dei Hospital. The doctors there removed five pills which, Ms Zammit said, were still intact. Later in the day, she miscarried the ‘baby’ and the sac, Ms Zammit said.

The Sunday Times of Malta asked the Health Ministry on what basis Mater Dei Hospital staff concluded she had committed an abortion before reporting her to the police.

Last night, Mater Dei CEO Ivan Falzon said the hospital could not comment on a particular case. “Mater Dei Hospital is duty-bound to flag any suspicious case with the relevant authorities. It is up to the authorities to then investigate and prosecute should it be deemed appropriate.”

When contacted, criminal lawyer Joe Giglio said Ms Zammit’s fate in the courts could have been different had she pleaded not guilty and proved there was no embryo inside her body.

Even though Ms Zammit intended to abort, the “impossibility of attempt” comes into play. Impossibility occurs when, at the time of the attempt, the facts make the intended crime impossible to commit although the defendant is unaware of this.