The son of a woman who was murdered while carrying out her duties as a traffic warden has expressed disappointment and frustration after a court awarded €62,566 in damages.
Fortunata Spiteri was killed on August 10, 2001, when a person wearing a mask from the horror film Scream stabbed her multiple times while she was working in Għarb.
Two men, John Attard and Benny Attard, were convicted of Spiteri’s murder while a third man, Giuseppe Farrugia, was also named in the proceedings but died before they were concluded.
Spiteri’s husband, Joseph Spiteri, later took the three men to court seeking to find them civilly responsible for his wife’s death. The case was assumed by his son Marvic after John died in 2021.
“There are people who are injured on a job site who have received better compensation.”- Marvic Spiteri
In a sentence handed down by Magistrate Brigitte Sultana on Thursday, the court found John Attard and Benny Attard responsible for Sultana’s death and ordered their heirs to pay Spiteri €62,566 in damages.
In comments to Times of Malta on Friday, Spiteri, however, found the outcome to be disappointing when weighed against the years that his family has fought to seek compensation for the loss of his mother.
“After 22 years of upheaval, a court decided that the value of my mother’s life was €62,566,” he said.
“While I would say it's better than nothing, I don’t feel that justice was done. This was 22 years of going in and out of court, being constantly deferred and running after lawyers. Not to mention the years that Benny spent running around the country as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. That’s what I’ve had to live with.”
Spiteri said that he intends to appeal the decision as he feels that the damages that were awarded are not enough to make up for the ordeal that he has had to endure.
“There are people who are injured on a job site who have received better compensation,” he said.
“We haven’t done anything wrong and yet the burden of their actions have all fallen on us. Why has it taken so long to come to a conclusion? Is it an appropriate amount to value the life of a human being?”
During criminal proceedings, Benny Attard had told investigators that John Attard wanted to kill Spiteri for issuing too many fines. Attard, who drove a bus at the time, had felt that Spiteri was picking on him.
The two men had met on a bus and mutually agreed to carry out the murder.
Benny Attard testified that John Attard knew Spiteri would be in Gharb that evening and drove to the location with Benny’s sister Maria and a man known as Il-Ħaxxiex.
Benny Attard was jailed for 30 years after admitting to his involvement in the killing. John Attard received a life sentence for the same crime and died in prison in 2020.
Following Attard’s death, Fortunata’s brother, Charles Galea, told Times of Malta he feared that the true mastermind of the murder would never be caught.