Police investigate man linked to killing of three cats in Valletta

Police are investigating a man in connection with the death of three cats found dead in the sea in Valletta in the past week. 

A police spokesperson said officers are speaking to a person in connection with suspected animal cruelty. The matter is also the subject of a magisterial inquiry.  

Sources told Times of Malta that police first spoke to the alleged suspect on September 2, following the first of two police reports filed. 

The police confirmed they had identified a suspect after the owner of one of the dead cats accused them and animal welfare officers of doing nothing to help. 

"Three cats dead. Thanks to no help from police or animal welfare (...) they merely try to solve the crime when it is already too late," Simone Falzon wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. 

Falzon, who owns Maori bar at Valletta's Il-Fossa, said she had warned the police about a man she spotted on CCTV trying to lure cats close to her bar to snatch them.  

She said she had filed a police report about the man on August 28 as she worried he was "going to do something bad to the cats."  

One day after she filed that report, Falzon and other residents noticed a strong smell coming from a nearby waste skip.

"On Monday, a cat feeder told me what we suspected: that it was a dead cat which was dumped in the skip after it was removed from the sea," she told Times of Malta. 

The following day, Tuesday, Falzon was told that another cat had been found dead in the sea.

Both those cats were strays.

Alarmed by the news of two dead cats in the span of three days, Falzon kept her kitten Milo indoors. 

"On Wednesday, I decided to let out Milo for a bit whilst I opened the bar and got some work done."

After a while, she realised that her five-month-old ginger kitten had gone missing. 

Falzon filed a second police report, this time to report her missing cat, on Thursday, September 2.

But on Friday morning, she found Milo lifeless in the sea.

Later, in another Facebook post, Falzon shared CCTV footage of the day Milo went missing. The footage shows Milo under a van, as a man crouches next to it. 

"He probably picked him up from behind the van. I was hanging the clothes. Someone was guiding him on what I'm doing," she wrote on Facebook.

Falzon said she knew police are investigating an alleged suspect, but could not understand why police would not arrest him. 

"I gave the police all the footage I have, I found Milo dead in the sea. What more evidence do they need to arrest him and lock him up for good?" she asked in disbelief.