A memorial for Lassana Cisse, the father-of-two, migrant worker who was murdered in April 2019, will be held on Thursday, allowing his friends in Malta to bid him farewell shortly before his body is repatriated to the Ivory Coast.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Imam Mohammed El Sadi, together with representatives of the Ivorian community will address the memorial to be held at 9.30am at the Mosque in Paola, Times of Malta confirmed. His body is expected to be transported back home at the end of the month. 

Cisse, 42, was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Ħal Far as he walked home on April 6, 2019.

Two soldiers – Francesco Fenech and Lorin Scicluna – have been accused of his murder as well as the attempted murder of another two men and a hit-and-run incident that was exposed by Times of Malta. 

The murder is believed to have been racially motivated. All four victims were black.

Both Fenech and Scicluna have been granted bail.

Cisse’s body was released for burial nine months after his murder, leaving his relatives in Ivory Coast and friends in Malta baffled as to why the corpse was kept at the mortuary for such a long time.

By March 2020, the government had committed itself to cover all repatriation costs, including transport to the burial place, permits and mortuary fees. But then COVID struck and ports were closed because of surging virus cases.

Last year, Cisse’s cousin, Abdoulaye told Times of Malta that a sense of “fatigue” had blanketed the family since the murder. His cousin had been “killed in the street like an animal” and Cisse’s mother, for whom the murdered man was an only child, just kept asking when she was going to see his body.

The memorial will allow his friends in Malta to bid farewell.