One of two suspects arrested over an armed robbery at a Mosta store last December was jailed after pleading guilty, while his alleged partner denied the charges and was remanded in custody. 

Metodija Popov, a 40-year-old North Macedonian national working in Malta as a barman, registered an admission during the joint arraignment on Thursday, one day after he was arrested in an apartment in Gżira. 

His alleged partner in crime, Boban Smiljkovic, a 45-year-old Serbian national, currently unemployed, pleaded not guilty to the robbery, aggravated by violence as well as to unlawfully holding up the 36-year-old cashier.

The suspect duo had rushed out of the store with cash and phone top-up cards. 

Smiljkovic, arrested on Tuesday night after police surrounded an apartment at St Paul’s Bay, was separately charged with carrying a weapon during the commission of the crime.

He was also separately charged with two other instances of aggravated theft targeting a Naxxar apartment and a construction site at St Paul’s Bay, as well as the theft of a backpack from a St Paul’s Bay supermarket and other items from a parked vehicle at Qormi last week. 

Prosecuting inspectors Lydon Zammit and Stephen Gulia told the court how the suspect duo had fled in a getaway car traced to Smiljkovic’s relative.

Investigations appeared to point to Smiljkovic as the suspect mastermind, the court, presided over by magistrate Josette Demicoli, was told. 

No request for bail was made on behalf of the Serb who was remanded in custody. 

The other co-accused, Popov, was declared guilty upon his admission and was handed an 18-month jail term after his lawyer pointed out that this was his first crime and that the accused was sorry for what he had done. 

Lawyer Jason Grima was defence counsel to both accused.