When Luckie (Ludgarda) Zammit’s stolen car was finally found in June 2020, she believed it was the result of her late husband’s heavenly intervention.

“I’m sure it was his doing. He managed to accomplish what the police could not,” Zammit said.

The car, a Fiat 500, was stolen from the Zammits’ garage in 2017 and the police found it three years later.

However, four years later, Zammit is still unable to drive the car she and her husband had bought together, as the courts have yet to release it.

Zammit filed a court application asking Magistrate Monica Vella to release the car a few days after it was found. But, over four years later, the car has still not been released. “Although the police completed their forensic analysis, the car remains in the police lock-up as its release has not been approved,” Zammit said.

“We were expecting the car to be released in a few weeks. I never expected it would take so long,” she said.

Zammit says she filed several requests through her lawyer to try and get the court to release the car and, earlier this year, her lawyer appealed to the attorney general for help, Zammit said. “I was never given a reason why they kept the car,” she said.

Zammit, 69, and her husband, Martin, bought the “mint” condition second-hand car for €11,500 in 2015.

They had it for two years before robbers broke into their Rabat garage and stole it.

“I was also very upset because they stole the car from the garage.

“They invaded my personal space,” she said.

Because the car keys were in the ignition, Zammit received no insurance money.

Hope that the car would ever be found had dwindled until it was found on Father’s Day 2020.

“I was on my way to the cemetery when I got a call saying the car had been found,” Zammit said.

“The car was found right next to the Żebbuġ cemetery, a few metres away from where my husband is buried.”

Four years later, Zammit is hoping she can have her car again. “It was like our baby. I used to love driving it,” Zammit said.