Activists demand accountability on femicide in protest at Police HQ

Activists will be gathering outside the Police Headquarters in Floriana on Friday to demand accountability over the murder and femicide of Bernice Cassar.

Moviment Graffitti is organising the protest two weeks after Cassar filed a police report at the same headquarters after her estranged husband threatened her. 

The protest comes on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which seeks to raise awareness on different forms of gender-based violence, including harassment, stalking, and physical abuse. 

It also comes days after Bernice Cassar was murdered by her estranged husband, Roderick Cassar, on her way to work on Tuesday morning. 

Bernice Cassar was shot in the face and chest by Roderick Cassar at the Corradino Industrial Estate soon after she had dropped off their two children to school. She bled to death on the road outside her car.

The victim had filed five police reports against her husband for domestic violence, one of them as recently as Monday morning, the day before she was murdered. Charges had been issued for three of the reports that were filed in May and the relevant court cases were scheduled to be heard in November 2023.

Despite the reports, police never arrested Roderick Cassar, even when he failed to turn up for an interview at Police HQ on 20 November.