Man dies in building shaft fall

A restaurant worker got the shock of his life yesterday morning when he found a dead man sprawled over the iron gratings in a building's shaft in Xlendi.

Police said the body was that of 40-year-old Charles Gauci, from Luqa, who died of injuries suffered when he fell into the shaft.

He had been occupying a rented flat adjacent to the restaurant for a couple of months, police sources said.

It is not yet known when the accident took place though police are assuming it happened some time on Sunday night.

Gauci was last seen at work on Friday morning and the police were alerted about the body by the restaurant worker who was cleaning the lavatories yesterday at 10.15 a.m.

Gauci worked as a maintenance man in a Gozo hotel where he had been employed for the last two months.

Police sources are working on the theory that Gauci fell, probably accidentally, as he was making his way back into his apartment on the upper floors. No foul play is suspected.

A cash register which lay on the top floor, the fifth, for use by the restaurant, was found on the top floor's balcony. Police are in fact also investigating a case of theft from the same establishment.

However there was no money in the cash register since that part of the restaurant is used only for private functions, the police sources said.

Nothing else was missing and no other damage was reported at the restaurant.

The police are trying to establish whether Gauci actually survived the fall and died only later since a window pane was found shattered on the side of the building near the iron gratings where he landed.

An autopsy is expected to be carried out today.

Magistrate Paul Coppini ordered an on-site inquiry. District police are investigating.

Gauci is the second corpse discovered in the space of two days following a drug death in Valletta on Sunday.