A man accused of murder admitted with a friend he had been commissioned to kill a man in Gozo and had been given a car and a shotgun and promised €5,000 to eliminate his target, a court heard on Friday.
Aleksandr Stojanovic, a Serb who lives in Safi, called his flatmate in a panic, telling him he was in “serious trouble”, while alerting him to a news report about the murder.
Andre Galea was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Stojanovic, 42, who stands accused of the murder of an Egyptian Walid Salah Abdel Motaleb Mohammed. The father of two was found dead in a remote field in Għarb, Gozo, on January 15, 2018.
Galea explained how he got to know the accused through a common friend, a car dealer whose name cannot be mentioned by court order. He lived with him between 2017 and 2018 and “loved him as a brother”, he said.
Their friendship hit the rocks some time in 2019 when he had found €2,000 missing and he told him to leave. He said Stojanovic had money problems and was a heavy heroin user.
In early 2018, Stojanovic disappeared for four days, simply telling him he had something to do. When he returned, he said he had major problems and then admitted to having killed a man with a shotgun in Gozo.
Agreement to 'chop up' the car
He said his friend was worried because the plan was for the BMW he was given to carry out the crime to be “chopped up” by a car dealer but instead it ended up at the police. He was also never paid the €5,000 he had been promised for the job.
Superintendent Keith Arnaud provided the court with a detailed account of police investigations into the murder. He said the murder victim had two visible shot wounds, to his neck and chest, and was found wearing only one shoe, with the other found a few metres way from the corpse. The police found four spent 12mm cartridges. They never found any of his personal belongings and neither did they ever locate the murder weapon.
The police spoke to the victim’s business partner, who said Mohammed had been receiving calls from “a Russian man”.
The evening before his corpse was found, he had travelled with him and his two daughters to Malta. While they were waiting at the Mġarr terminal, Mohammed pointed to a grey BMW and told him that the Russian man had been calling him.
As they drove past the car, he heard the man telling Mohammed “see you tonight”. The BMW had a yellow UK number plate.
Upon their return to Gozo, Mohammed joined him at his apartment and left at around 11pm.
Mobile localisations showed he received calls at 11.45pm and at 11.52pm.
The police suspect that the number used for the calls was a burner phone, which stopped being used the day after the murder.
He explained how the BMW was seen being driven towards Għarb and then being driven in the opposite direction around 30 minutes later.
“Based on the cell phone data and the CCTV footage, the police established that the phone and the BMW were travelling together, including when it crossed over to Malta after the murder," Arnaud said.
He said the police tracked down the car and found it had been sold to a man through a Qormi car dealership.
Police investigations took a twist in October 2019, when the police spoke to Galea who told them how Stojanovic had admitted with him to committing the murder.
The accused was arrested at the Safi detention centre where he was awaiting deportation. He insisted with the police that the last time he had been to Gozo was in 2017.
He denied his involvement in the murder and insisted he never drove a BMW with UK registration plates. When he was shown stills from CCTV footage, the accused said the man looked like him but was not him.
The court also heard the victim’s former partner explaining how they had split up because of the accused's drug problems. She said he had loaned a man some money which he was finding it difficult to recoup.
The case, presided over by magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, continues on June 11.
Lawyers Anthony Vella and Etienne Savona from the Attorney General's office prosecuted along with Arnaud and police inspector Bernard Charles Spiteri. Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi appeared parte civile for the victim's family. Lawyers Franco Debono and Francesca Zarb were defence counsel.