The owner of two pit bulls that mauled a 95-year-old woman to death on Monday spoke out for the first time on Wednesday, saying his family had always warned her not to go up to his flat if he was not around.

Andre Galea’s shock over the horrific dog attack that killed his grandmother, Inez Galea, was still visible on Wednesday.

Trembling, he said he still could not understand why she had entered his apartment that day when she had always been warned about the dogs – a male pit bull, Maxie, and a female Ċika.

His grandmother (not aunt, as previously reported) lived in a groundfloor maisonette in the same block as his flat, in Antonio Sciortino Street, Msida, but with a separate entrance.

The woman’s pet chihuahua was also killed in the attack.

 “I think she had started walking up the stairs when the dogs saw her and attacked. She was probably holding her chihuahua in her arms,” he told Times of Malta as he cuddled another of his dogs, a Tibetan Mastiff, outside his residence.

Galea said he loved his dogs dearly and treated them as if they were his own children.

Inez Galea was killed when she was attacked by pit bulls. Her neighbours and animal rights activists had complained for months about the conditions in which the animals were kept

He kept 10 of them in all – the two pit bulls and the Tibetan Mastiff slept in his apartment and the rest had their own quarters on the roof or in an internal yard.

“I still cannot believe what happened. We always told nanna not to go up to my place if I wasn’t there because my dogs are guard dogs at the end of the day. They had never done anything of the sort before and are always well-behaved when I take them on walks,” said Galea, who describes himself on Facebook as a dog breeder specialising in pit bulls.

She had always been warned not to go into his flat without him, he repeated.

“I don’t know what got into her to go in that day,” he said.

Galea's account of the story contrasts with that of neighbours, who say the elderly woman was in her own property at the time of the attack. 

Galea said he was swimming in Kalkara when he received a call from a neighbour to go back home.

He returned to a “frightening scene which I will never forget for the rest of my life”.

“I’m still trembling as we speak,” he said.

“I really cannot understand why she went in…”

Andre Galea on the roof of his residence with another of his 10 dogs.

Police investigators believe it was Maxie who mauled the woman, while Ċika may not have been involved.

Both dogs have been taken away and he has been interrogated by the police over the incident.

Galea was released from hospital on Wednesday after being kept for observation for chest pains.

Times of Malta reported that neighbours had made multiple complaints to authorities about the conditions in which the animals were being kept.

Complaints were filed as early as last December, with residents and animal rights activists claiming the animals were kept in squalid conditions.

One of the dogs seized from the house on Monday was covered in scarring.

But Galea denied these claims on Wednesday, insisting that the animals were in a great condition and that he had rescued some of them from difficult situations.

He had rescued one from a cellar while he had found another in a bad state in a field, tied up with a chain.

Yet another, the Tibetan Mastiff, which he described as quiet, was locked in a cage and he had adopted her.

“These are my kids and I treat them as such,” he said.

“I have only them in the world.”

Investigations are still under way.