Updated | Murdered lawyer trusted her killer, says pathologist

The jury trying Libyan Nizar El Gadi for the murder of lawyer Margaret Mifsud has heard forensic expert Dr. Mario Scerri report that the slain laywer had "definitely" been murdered at the hands of a person she trusted.

The cause of death was traumatic asphyxia, said Dr. Scerri. He concluded that Mifsud had “certainly not died a natural death” but had been murdered in her car, at the place where the vehicle had been found.

The assailant was known to the victim, said the expert, because the aggressor had pinned her to her reclined seat. “What woman would let a stranger sit on her chest? The lack of evidence of resistance indicates that the woman’s killer was a trusted by the victim.” He estimated the time of death as being between 1:00am and 3:00 am.

“This is definitely a case of homicide by traumatic asphyxia.”

“She must have trusted her aggressor - even with a pistol against her head there would have been some struggling.”

Neither could it have been an accident during a romantic encounter, said Dr. Scerri. “The fact that whoever sat on her chest, which was the method used to kill her, did not get off – to the contrary pinned her down,” belied that theory. Her assailant was likely to be a man. Traumatic asphyxia “requires a certain strength” he explained.

Dr. Scerri had no truck with the defence’s line of questioning.  “You said this was a place for romance, that the woman was menstruating, that the aggressor’s seat was upright...” began the defence. “The position of that seat is irrelevant, “ interrupted Dr. Scerri. “The aggressor was sitting on her chest, she was menstruating, so what was he doing? She went with good intentions and her aggressor gave her the impression that he was going to do what was expected but then pinned her to the seat.”

 “What idiot would allow a person they do not know to climb on their chest in a secluded area? Definitey murdered, definitely pinning of the chest. The person who killed her misled her into thinking that it was going to be a romantic encounter. This is the only plausible scenario in my mind. She definitely suffered in her final moments, she was definitely killed by traumatic asphyxia, the  forensics are staring at you in the face, are you saying she died by herself?” said Scerri, impatiently.

Lawyer Martin Testaferrata Moroni Viani asked why there were no signs of resistance.

“Traumatic asphyxia is an ugly death,” replied Dr. Scerri. “You are conscious and you want to breathe but you cannot. When a person is properly pinned down, there is no way to resist.”

Scerri said he could not give the name of the aggressor, only his characteristics: that the aggressor was trusted by the victim and that the aggressor had pinned her down by sitting on her chest.

The defence posited an alternative scenario. ”Let us assume that her reports weren’t false, let us assume that the victim was terrified of my client...in view of the turbulent history between the victim and my client, how could this reasonably sit with your theory?”

Dr. Scerri was not swayed. It was not the first time that he had dealt with such a report, he said. “She could easily have been trying to make an abusive relationship work for the sake of the children.”

DNA specialist Dr. Marisa Cassar also presented her report to the jury. DNA from the accused was present under the fingernails of the victim and there was no sign of intercourse, said Dr. Cassar.

Victim's Mother testifies

Earlier today, the jury heard Theresa Mifsud, the mother of the victim, testify. “Sometimes it feels like I’m in a dream. What did we do to him? We would always feed him and wash his clothes,” Mifsud said of the accused, choking back tears as she said how she had accepted the accused into her home, in spite of her misgivings. She had not forgiven herself for doing so.  

“She had been married to Nizar El Gadi but their marriage had been annulled. We allowed him to live with us after the marriage was dissolved.”

Her daughter had married the accused, aged 22, using the civil rite, after falling pregnant whilst still a student. The couple lived with her, said the witness.

Domestic strife

“Practically from the beginning I would always hear him shouting at her and she would reply in a normal tone,” she said, but the reasons for this behaviour was unclear. “She wouldn’t tell me much about these things.”

As she was still a student she had gone to her mother for financial assistance to appoint a lawyer for annulment proceedings. The marriage was annulled after approximately two years.

At a point after the annulment, El Gadi had left Malta and around three years later he had returned, in 2009. When he returned to Malta, the accused would sleep in Margaret’s car. Margaret interceded with her mother on his behalf to allow him back into their house.

“There was a time when I thought they were back together, but later I would hear them arguing from downstairs. One time I saw him shouting at the eldest daughter, during a meal. I saw him, fork in hand, trying to force meat into her mouth and I tried to help the situation by telling the girl to eat the meat, because she would always give us trouble eating meat. My daughter later told me that he did it on purpose to ‘make her sin’.”

“Margaret always wanted her children to live in a family environment and have a father figure,” said the mother, asked why she had allowed the accused back into the house.

Accused’s parenting skills

“I once caught him sitting on the youngest child’s head, whilst jumping up and down on the bed,” the mother said. He had played down the incident, telling her that it was simply rough play and he was only joking.

El Gadi had became increasingly aggressive towards the end, she said. “I saw him holding my daughter by her hair, violently shaking her head. He had tried to pass it off as an expression of endearment.

Once he had told me, “I know how to kill a man without leaving a trace… At the beginning he had once made as if to attack me, balling his fists,” Mifsud said, adding that this took place shortly after the couple married and before his three-year absence. “He was made to leave the house after this.”

‘I can still remember seeing her put on my coat in the hall’

Speaking fast and barely pausing to breathe, the mother said that on the day of her murder, her daughter had told her that she planned to leave for the meal at around 8pm.

The children had told their grandmother that Margaret was going out to eat at a restaurant in Xemxija.

“She was excited to be going out, putting on her coat and all that. She gave the children the mobile number of her friend, Astrid Bonnici, and told them to call it in case of an emergency, because her phone would be off. She told me it was because he was pestering her…. I can still remember seeing her put on my coat in the hall.”

Just before leaving, the victim had told her mother that she had a feeling that something was going to happen. Her mother, wanting her to go out and have fun, told her not to worry.

She had fallen asleep and woken up at 4am. Concerned because her daughter had still not returned, the mother called Bonnici but the latter told her that she was at home.

Officers at the Birkirkara police station asked her to come to the station and file a formal police report, so she quickly got dressed and filed the police report, after which the search started, she said.

“I stayed at home with the children and my husband went out looking for Margaret. He saw the police cars and called me, saying ‘they’ve found her, they’ve found her’,” said the mother, her voice breaking with emotion.

“I knew it was him... I told the police that he had tried to kill me four weeks before.”

Cross-examination

Asked about whether she had cooked on the night when the accused had taken the victim and her children to Pizza Hut, she replied: “What has that got to do with anything? I don’t know what I cooked, I don’t remember what I cooked yesterday much less then!”

“On reflection, I was a little upset because she would normally insist I cook dinner early and I had already prepared a meal.”

Occasionally, the questions seemed to verge on the bizarre. Asked by the defence whether she would ever watch British soap-opera Eastenders with the children, she replied: “Not knowingly.”

The witness was asked whether the victim’s brother had been renting a property in Xemxija at the time. She said that on one occasion, Margaret had taken the children to see him, while her mother had visited Canada.

The defence then asked whether she had ever been told that the victim and her brother would take her children for a walk in Xemxija. “And how am I supposed to know?” the woman spat back, bristling with anger.

Defence lawyer Martin Testaferrata Moroni Viani confronted the witness, describing her testimony as the “character assassination of my client”.

“How come your version of the 23 April does not correspond with the statement made by the children about the visit to Pizza Hut on the 23 April?” he asked, to the puzzlement of the prosecution bench. Judge Antonio Mizzi clarified, asking whether between 2009 and 2012, when the accused had been allowed back into the home, the home situation had gotten better and the wounds of the relationship had healed. From the outside, everything seemed OK, replied the woman, “but you can never tell what’s going on behind the scenes.”

Testaferrata Moroni Viani probed and poked the witness’s account from every angle, but she replied consistently, logically and without hesitation, once she had understood the questions.

Forensic pathologists testify

Earlier this morning forensic pathologists told the jury that Mifsud’s death “could not have taken place in the position which her body was found in.”

Court appointed pathologists Dr Ali Safraz and Dr Marie Therese Camilleri Podesta, who had conducted the autopsy on the body of the victim, explained their findings to the jury.

The victim was healthy, and did not smoke or drink. No evidence of drug use was found. Bruising on one lung was compatible with great external pressure being applied to the chest. The cause of death was established as traumatic asphyxia –the inability to breathe caused by this pressure.

The victim had a stream of dried blood leading from her nostril towards her eyebrows – indicating that the deceased was flat on her back at the time of her death. A picture of the body, as it was found, was shown. “Is it possible for the blood to have flowed upwards in this position?” asked the judge. Dr. Camilleri Podesta replied in the negative.

Dr. Safraz was asked to interpret the lack of signs indicating the victim put up a fight. “I cannot say why the victim did not resist, but there were no signs of resistance... to me the most obvious reason for this to have been produced was to have somebody sitting on your chest.”

Asphyxia would have taken place within three to five minutes, he said. The bruising on the wrist, while not the result of a blow, “may have indicated some last-minute resistance,” Dr. Safraz added.

Replying to a question by the defence, Dr.Safraz said that the bruising on the lung had “occurred when she was not driving.”
The lack of signs of a struggle was likely because the victim was pinned down, said Dr. Safraz.
At the defence’s insistence, a court usher was made to lie down on a bench whilst the pathologist indicated the method which he surmised the killer had made use of.

The prosecution announced that it had submitted its evidence and closed its submissions.

Judge Antonio Mizzi is presiding over the trial. Assistant Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia and lawyer Giannella Busuttil from the office of the Attorney General are prosecuting.

Lawyer Martin Testaferata Moroni Viani is defending the accused, whilst lawyers Kathleen Grima and Arthur Azzopardi are appearing as parte civile for the victim’s family.