Accused impersonated victim in conversation with employer

A court heard how a Malian national accused of murdering an Ivorian man in 2010 had taken his victim's cell phone and made the dead man's employer believe he had made his way to Sicily.

Farmer Anna Schembri, who worked the fields in Mgarr, told Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona that when she telephoned Adame Diabate, a migrant from Ivory Coast and asked him whether he was going to turn up for work, she was told: "I am not coming, I have gone to Sicily."

Prosecutors told the court that the conversation was made by Fodie Keitha, 33, at the same time Diabate's lifeless body was found half-buried beneath a carob tree on the outskirts of Hal Far.

According to Inspector Chris Pullicino, the phone call was received by the accused, Fodie Keita from Mali, who was later to be found with the dead man's phone.

Both migrants lived at the Hal Far open centre.