Court experts, police in disagreement over evidence of Sliema double murder

Magistrate Edwina Grima has taken over the investigation into the New Year's Day double murder in Sliema, after an apparent disagreement on the interpretation of evidence between forensic experts and police CID investigators.

An onsite inquiry held last night, and which is continuing this morning at the penthouse in Falcon House, on High Street in Sliema, is practically re-opening the investigation after forensic experts disagreed with the theories so far touted by CID investigators.

Sources privy to the investigation claimed Magistrate Edwina Grima did not even have the details that police divulged in a press conference last month, in particular the findings related to telephone and computer analysis of the two victims.

Forensic experts insisted on returning to the scene of the crime because they believe they might have evidence that proves the way events unfolded on the tragic night, contrary to CID investigators' theories. They also deployed the use of a Quasar machine, that illuminates fingerprints in a fluorescent glow so photos are taken of these prints with specialist equipment.

Grima was accompanied by police superintendent Sandro Gatt, homicide squad chief Keith Arnaud, forensic experts Mario Scerri, Richard Aquilina and scene of the crime officers.

MaltaToday can also confirm that senior officers from the police headquarters, who have previously been at the heart of the investigation, were not present for the onsite inquiry yesterday night.

Magistrate Grima's takeover of the inquiry also means the ownership of the investigation is now no longer in the senior police investigator's hands.

According to this newspaper's sources, the court experts say important leads were discounted by police investigators. Questions are being asked, for example, as to whether a third party could have been instrumental for investigators to shed light on the so far discarded link between the two victims.

On 23 January, Assistant Commissioner Pierre Calleja made an appeal to the public to come forward with any information that could shed light on the motive behind the double killings of father of twins Duncan Zammit and Nicholas Gera, who were involved in a fight to their deaths with knives.

The crime conference was perceived to have come three weeks too late, as the harrowing details of the alleged assault - believed to have started when Gera broke into the Zammits' penthouse at around 6am - became the subject of wild speculation as to why the Bosnian-born Gera, 26, had killed Zammit, 32.

The police ruled out any sexual link between the Gera and Zammit, the husband of hotelier Claire Zammit Xuereb and daughter of entrepreneur Anglu Xuereb, and no links between either family were established.

The police analysed the traffic, but not content, of some 35,000 voice calls and mobile phone messages made by Zammit, his widow Claire Zammit Xuereb and Gera over the past nine months but nothing connected the two parties. Even personal computers and travel plans were investigated.

Zammit and Gera died of multiple stab wounds, after Gera entered the penthouse after jumping onto a terrace from the roof of an adjacent apartment block. A fight then broke out in the bedroom where the Zammits slept with their twins. The two knives used in the fight were taken from the kitchen.

Police have not confirmed whether Claire Zammit Xuereb's fingerprints were on one of the knives, possibly used to defend her husband.