Mobile phone calls lead police to suspect

The man accused of a woman's murder had gone to see a man in Qormi on the day of the murder but sped away at "100 miles an hour" when the man turned down his request to kill her, a senior police officer told a court yesterday.

Assistant Police Commissioner Emanuel Cassar, head of the CID, was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Josef Grech, 32, of Balzan who is pleading not guilty to Patricia Attard's murder in Ta' Qali on February 13.

Grech also stands charged with the possession of a weapon at the time of the commission of the crime, with having the weapon without a licence, stealing Attard's mobile phone and damaging her car.

The witness said the first thing the police did in their investigations was check the profile of the victim's calls and they established that she had received a call at 10.20 p.m. and another at 11.06 p.m.

The police started becoming suspicious of Grech when it resulted that the last two calls the victim received were made from a mobile phone registered in the accused man's wife. When the police spoke to her, she said the phone belonged to her daughter and both of them were asleep at the time but her husband could have used it.

When Grech was arrested, he was asked whether he had spoken to the victim on February 13 and he categorically denied it. But when faced with the facts, he admitted calling her and later erasing the numbers from the phone's call register as he did not want his daughter to get into trouble.

The police officer said the accused had contacted Eman Caruana, of Qormi, and tried to entice him to commit the murder. An analysis of the calls made from the accused's mobile phone showed that on the day of the murder he called Caruana seven times and the latter called him five times.

Caruana told the police the accused had asked him to kill the victim but Grech said he spoke to Caruana about the sale of a car.

The witness said the police had also received confidential information that Grech had asked Charles Vella, known as il-gagu, to kill the victim for Lm10,000. Vella and Grech had also discussed throwing the victim off a block of flats or a cliff.

When confronted with the new information about the various plots to kill Attard, the accused said he would be telling the truth the following morning. But all he did was shift the blame on Vella, with whom he was confronted.

Vella had told the police that shortly before Grech was arraigned, the former had seen him drive past in a car that had a faulty silencer. He was speaking on his mobile phone and "the accused pointed his fingers like children do when they pretend to be shooting". Vella took this as a threat by Grech to pay him back.

The witness said the police had initially received confidential information that the victim's husband, Richard, had wanted to kill his wife. When the police spoke to him he denied it.

In the course of investigations, the police spoke to two women who had been with the victim at a bingo club. They both heard her speak on the phone and she had told one of them that she had to meet Grech. She told them not to worry if she took a bit long as she would be returning later.

The assistant police commissioner said the accused started crying and covering his face with his hands at one point during the interrogation.

He said Grech was caught out a number of times. For example, he said he had parked his van at 11.30 but the van was parked later and that he had not phoned the victim when he had in fact done so.

He also tried to explain the presence of gunshot residue on his person by saying he had been standing next to a hunter a week before. But he then changed this to three days before and then again to around noon on the day of the murder.

The case continues on April 2.

Inspectors Chris Pullicino and Carmel Bartolo are prosecuting.

Dr Giannella Caruana Curran and Dr Emanuel Mallia are appearing for Grech.