DNA on glasses possible link between New Year’s Day tragedy victims

DNA analysis on two drinking glasses found on the billiard table in the hall of Duncan Zammit's penthouse in Falcon House Sliema, where him and Nicholas Gera were killed in an alleged knife fight on New Year's Day morning, is being considered as key to establishing a link between the two victims.

DNA analysis on the glasses, to determine who drank from them, is still underway in a laboratory in the United Kingdom and their results expected to be known in the coming days. An analysis is also being conducted on two cigarette butts found in an ashtray next to the wine glasses, and a packet of cigarettes close by.

Forensic scientists and police investigators remain in disagreement on the interpretation of evidence, in particular regarding the point of entry of Nicholas Gera into Duncan Zammit's apartment.

MaltaToday is informed that three lengthy on-site inquiries held last week were ordered by Magistrate Edwina Grima who allowed forensic experts to "prove their point" on outstanding matters, which according to their initial report did not match the theories so far touted by the police.

In fact, experts deployed the use of a Quasar machine, that illuminates fingerprints in a fluorescent glow so photos are taken of these prints with specialist equipment. This machine has given forensic scientists the opportunity to take better images of finger and palm-prints found on the doorbell downstairs, and on the main door to the penthouse on the eighth floor.

Forensic experts are inclined to believe that Gera may have entered the apartment through the main door, and not from the back.

Toxicology tests on the stomach content and blood stream of 33-year-old Duncan Zammit and 28-year-old Bosnian-born Nicholas Gera, have shown alcohol in the two, but both clean from any narcotic substance.

The tests in the UK are to establish if Zammit and Gera drank from the glasses while matching the alcohol traces in them with the samples elevated from both their stomachs.

The DNA results on the two glasses is crucial for the forensic scientists to prove their point, that the events which unfolded in the penthouse on New Year's Day don't quite tally with the conclusions reached so far by the police.

Duncan Zammit's widow, hotelier Claire Zammit Xuereb and daughter of entrepreneur Angelo Xuereb, is the only witness and has so far reportedly kept to her version that Gera had two knives, when he entered her bedroom and attacked her husband while asleep. The couple's newborn twin babies also slept in the same room.

While evidence was found that the fight broke out in the bedroom and then continued in the corridor where the two men collapsed as a result of the grievious wounds they sustained, it was established that the two knives found near the bodies were in fact taken from the kitchen, proving that Gera entered the house unarmed.

The mystery though lays in the dynamic of how the knives were procured. The main knife which Gera used was taken from a knife rack, while the second came from a kitchen drawer.

In a press conference held three weeks after the murders, police were not in a position to confirm whether Claire Zammit Xuereb's fingerprints were on one of the knives.

Entrepreneur Xuereb had declared on television and in other media that Gera was armed with two knives, and that there was "no connection" between Gera, his daughter and her dead husband.

Forensic scientists returned to the scene of crime for three times this week and in the presence of Magistrate Edwina Grima who is heading the inquiry into the murders, deployed the use of a Quasar machine, that illuminates fingerprints in a fluorescent glow so photos are taken of these prints with specialist equipment.

The machine permitted the experts to take more pictures and thoroughly go through the crime scene once again, reportedly discovering further evidence that may prove that Gera did not enter the apartment from the back, but through the main door.

Experts were in fact seen lifting fingerprints from the doorbell at street level, and also from the main door to the apartment on the eighth floor.

This theory leads to the question as to whether Gera rang the bell and made his way upstairs and found the door ajar. He was not found to have the key to the apartment in his pockets.

Moreover, Gera's palm and finger prints were also discovered on the walls and furniture in almost all the rooms, while other details were noted, most particular marks on the fridge handle, where it seems that some food was consumed after the Zammit's hosted their in-laws had left the house after ushering in the New Year.

The on-site investigations almost two months after the murders are evidence of the disagreement between the forensic scientists and police investigators.

Sources told MaltaToday that Magistrate Edwina Grima did not have the details which were divulged by the police during a press conference which was called on 23 January three weeks after the murders.

During that press conference, police said that they had 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.

During the press conference, 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 murder.

A few days earlier Police Commissioner John Rizzo had appealed for media silence on the case when interviewed on Radio Malta.

Forensic scientists believe that Gera may have been in the apartment well before 6.45 a.m. when the fight broke out leaving him and his victim both dead.

Although this remains to be proven, police remain in the dark as to Gera's whereabouts between 5 a.m. and 6.45 a.m., after he left Muddy Waters bar in St Julian's on that fateful morning.

MaltaToday is informed that Claire Zammit Xuereb is expected to be recalled before Magistrate Edwin Grima in the coming days and to recount the events of that tragic New Year's Day.

Speaking to MaltaToday soon after this newspaper revealed the disagreement between CSIs and police investigators on the case last Wednesday, a senior police officer privy to the investigation was adamant to pass on the message that "there is a difference between fact and theoretical nonsense".