Sion Grech’s sisters are devastated that no one has been found guilty of the 2005 brutal murder and blame the justice system for the outcome.

“The courts failed us. All this time has passed and my brother’s killer has got away with murder,” said Sion’s eldest sister Rita Borg, speaking a day after a trial by jury acquitted the two men charged with the crime.

Sion was born male but identified as a woman. On April 13, 2005, eight days after she was reported missing by her father, her body was found amid a carpet of flowers in a field near the roundabout known as is-Salib tal-Marsa.

An autopsy revealed she had been stabbed at least 17 times.

Eight years later, in 2013, Sion’s partner Ismael Habesh and another man, Faical Mohouachi, were charged with the brutal murder.

It took another decade for the trial by jury to start and on Friday, jurors found both men not guilty of homicide, Habesh by a count of 7-2 and Mahouachi by 8-1. 

Three of Sion’s sisters sat in throughout the two-week trial and yesterday spoke of their devastation at the verdict.

They had been hoping for justice and closure but feel they have been let down by the justice system.

They said the system allowed lawyers to depict their brother as “a prostitute and drug addict” but shielded the accused from being tainted “with facts” in the eyes of jurors.

“The law does not make sense. The accused are presumed innocent and jurors cannot be told about their criminal past. But lawyers are allowed to depict the victim negatively. The law should apply across the board,” said Borg.

“Who am I to change the law? But I have to make this point.”

The sisters are angered at the delays, but not only. They believe there have been a number of other shortcomings throughout the case.

The accused are presumed innocent and jurors cannot be told about their criminal past. But lawyers are allowed to depict the victim negatively

They point to evidence not being properly preserved, such as an anonymous letter sent to the police.

Other evidence was deemed inadmissible due to documents not having been signed by the magistrate who carried out the inquiry.

Six statements released by Habesh to the police between 2005 and 2009 were not deemed admissible because he had no legal representation, even though the law back then did not require it.

Then there was the fact that jurors could not be made aware of the criminal history of the accused but it was accepted for the defence to paint Sion as a lowlife prostitute.

“All people talk about is the murder of a gay prostitute. But Sion was so much more. To us he was our brother Simon. He was a 20-year-old young man, who always felt like a woman inside but who was not accepted 18 years ago.

“When he finally found someone who accepted him, that person abused of that trust and he ended up in prostitution,” Borg said.

Victim of circumstance 

Raised in Siġġiewi in a humble family that “never really had a lot of money”, Sion, or Simon as his sisters call their brother, was the only boy of six siblings.

Standing outside the law courts, three of his sisters – Borg, Karen Grixti and Nadine Grech – recalled how, ever since childhood, Sion identified as female.

“He used to love designing clothes. He loved the glamour and the make-up. I still have a pink dress he designed for himself,” Grech said.

Borg recalled: “He would play with dolls with us and try on our clothes.

“He liked to call himself Sion. Whenever we would introduce him as our brother Simon, he would smile and say: Do you see a man? No. I am Sion,” Borg added as she mimicked Sion’s smile.

The sisters believe their brother was a victim of circumstance.

“Eighteen years ago these things were not as accepted as they are today,” Grech pointed out. “Our parents loved Simon but our father never truly accepted him dressing up as a woman.”

Looking back, now in her 40s and a parent herself, Borg regrets not having been there for Sion during those moments.

All people talk about is the murder of a gay prostitute. But Sion was much more than that

“You feel guilty. Maybe had we been there, this would not have happened. Let’s be honest, Sion was no angel. He took drugs and did rehabilitation programmes.”

“He wanted to forget. He was struggling to be accepted,” Grixti said.

Then everything went downhill when Sion started hanging out with the wrong company. She finally met a man who, in her eyes, accepted her – and she mistook it for love.

But that person abused of this trust and led Sion into prostitution, the sisters said.

They told Sion to walk away but her brother, Borg said, was stubborn and would not listen.

“He was hard-headed but extremely kind-hearted – he would give you money even if he did not have much – but he was naive. At the end of the day, he was a 20-year-old young man struggling to figure out who he was,” Grixti said.

Living with regrets

On April 5, 2005, their father, Gaetano Grech, reported Sion missing.

“Simon was very close to our mother. They’d speak almost every day,” recalled Grech.

When Sion went missing, their parents immediately “had a feeling he was dead”.

The family came together and spent long hours at their Siġġiewi childhood home, hoping for news, day after day. On April 13, they received the worst possible news: their brother’s body had been found.

“I was shopping with mummy,” Grixti recalled.

“I remember being told the news and pretending nothing had happened so as not to shock her.”

When eventually their mother did find out, her health deteriorated. She was already struggling with diabetes but then started to suffer from depression.

“After that day she was alive but it was as though she was not,” Grech said.

It was their father who identified the body at the mortuary, a scene that haunted him for the rest of his days until he passed away in September 2007.

“Daddy felt guilty that he did not tell Sion he loved him. He would cry at night about this. My daddy was the person who went into the mortuary to certify him dead. He was so upset about it. He described each wound one by one to me. He needed to open up as he could not speak to anyone else about it,” Borg recalled.

The sisters all got to see their dead brother during the trial when photos of the scene of the crime were projected for jurors to see.

“His face was unrecognisable. But we recognised other parts. Like when I saw his feet I remembered them,” said Grech, who was 13 when her brother was killed.

The sisters regret that their parents never got to see the day justice was restored – a day they are still hoping for since their brother’s killer remains free.

Lawyer Roberto Montalto, who represented the family as parte civile, explained the family cannot appeal the verdict of a jury. It is only the Attorney General who can file an appeal and only on legal points.

“Our mother died a year ago. She mentioned Sion every day. She was always asking us to pray for his soul,” Grech said.