Investigators return to Falcon House

Inquiring Magistrate Edwina Grima last night returned to Falcon House in Sliema in a bid to compile further evidence that could shed light on the events that led to the violent murder of two men on New Year's Day.

Accompanied by senior police investigators, forensic scientists and scene of crime officers, Magistrate Edwina Grima reportedly followed scene of crime officers break the seals on the penthouse doors and operate a new sophisticated forensic tool which is used to uncover miniscule details of a person's passage inside a building.

The tool was brought to Malta for investigators to compare notes on details told to them by Claire Zammit Xuereb, the only witness to the crime which left her 37-year-old husband Duncan and his alleged aggressor Nicholas Gera both dead with multiple stab wounds.

Police remain puzzled on why Nicholas Gera had broken into the penthouse and attacked Duncan Zammit on New Year's Day.

Last month, police issued a fresh call for assistance from the general public in a bid to seek answers behind the motive for the aggression.

Assistant Police Commissioner Pierre Calleja told a press conference that the investigation yielded no link between the Zammit's, and Nicholas Gera.

According to an investigative reconstruction, Gera entered the penthouse through the communal door leading to the apartment's roof.

The traffic of some 35,000 phone calls and SMSs dating several months back, together with computer data were thoroughly analysed by a court appointed expert, but no evidence was found on a possible connection between the two men and the widow.

No links, of any kind, including sexual, were found.

While it remains unknown for how long Nicholas Gera was inside the apartment before he walked into the bedroom and attacked ZAmmit while allegedly asleep, police believe that Gera got a knife from the kitchen and walked into the bedroom and attacked Zammit with it.

It remains unknown if toxicology results on the two victims were completed and received by investigators, or whether fingerprint analysis on the second knife yielded any evidence of having been held by Claire Zammit who may have acted in self-defence.

Zammit has been interrogated - so far as a witness - for three times, while third parties, who allegedly were in contact with Nicholas Gera in the very early hours of New Year's Day after clocking off as a waiter in a Paceville restaurant.