A man accused of committing a murder in Gozo in 2018 has been granted bail after spending just over three years in preventive custody and will now await his turn to face trial by jury.
Aleksandr Stojanovic, a 45-year-old Serbian national who lives in Safi, is pleading not guilty to having murdered an Egyptian man who was shot twice six years ago.
Father of two Walid Salah Abdel Motaleb Mohammed was found dead in a remote field in Għarb on January 22, 2018.
The victim was found lying on the ground with two shotgun wounds, one on the left side of the neck and the other in the centre of his chest. The murder weapon was never found.
The police said investigators had established that the accused was with the victim just hours before.
The compilation of evidence against Stojanovic was concluded and the bill of indictment was issued by the attorney general in November 2022.
Defence counsel filed several requests for bail but all were turned down, mainly because the courts deemed Stojanovic untrustworthy. The accused had fled from Serbia where he was wanted to serve a term of imprisonment of three-and-a-half years.
Madam Justice Audrey Demicoli was told this week the attorney general was objecting to the granting of bail.
However, after taking into consideration the stage at which the proceedings had reached as well as all the circumstances of the case, the court granted Stojanovic bail against a €20,000 deposit and a €40,000 personal guarantee.
The judge also ordered him to appear for the proceedings when told, not to speak to any of the witnesses and sign the bail book daily. He cannot leave Malta and must be at home between 9pm and 7 the following morning.
Lawyers Franco Debono, José Herrera and Adreana Zammit were defence counsel.
Police investigations reached dead end in the period between when the body was found and May 2021 when there was a breakthrough and the accused arrested after the police had identified two important witnesses who corroborated CCTV footage from cameras in Għasri and other CCTV cameras spread around Gozo, including those at the ferry terminal in Mġarr.
The police also managed to trace the car believed to have been used in the murder and questioned its new owners.
Stojanovic won compensation last November when a court found that his right to a fair hearing had been breached as he ended up in more than 30 days of legal limbo, unable to challenge his state of arrest while his case changed hands from one judge to another due to abstentions.
His lawyers argued that the fact that the law did not allow the habeas corpus remedy (a state of illegal arrest) to those issued with a bill of indictment, breached the accused’s right to a fair hearing.
Their argument was upheld with a judge calling upon the legislator to effect the necessary amendments.