Updated | Police charge lawyer’s estranged husband with murder

Updated - Additional reporting by Bianca Caruana

Nizar el-Gadi was remanded in custody after pleading not guilty to murdering Margaret Mifsud, 31, on Thursday 18 April.

El Gadi also pleaded not guilty to stealing iPhone and relapsing and committing a crime during the period of inoperative suspended sentence.

Mifsud's parents were present throughout the proceedings, showing dismay.

He relapsed from a sentence where he was found guilty of making a bomb threat to the US embassy in Floriana in 2009.

Earlier

Police have closed investigations into the mysterious death of Margaret Mifsud, a lawyer and judicial assistant who was found dead in mysterious circumstances in Bahar ic-Caghaq last April, and will be charging her former partner with murder.

Nizar el Gadi, has been under investigation for the past months in the wake of reports filed before Mifsud's death. Mifsud had claimed that she and her children had been threatened by her estranged partner and feared for her life on various occasions.

While el Gadi was recently charged over the threats, the investigations continued into Mifsud's death after various objects remained missing from the scene of the crime, amongst which her shoes, handbag and mobile phone.

It transpired that on the night Mifsud went missing, she had made some phone calls but the phone remained missing together with her handbag which contained house keys, purse and other personal items.

It is not known what led the police to pin el Gadi with her murder but it is believed that new evidence has come to light over the past weeks.

El Gadi will be arraigned later today.

Results of Mifsud's autopsy indicated that she suffered a heart attack, however it is still unknown what caused the heart attack. Mifsud was found dead on Thursday 18 April in a car at Bahar ic-Caghaq.

The prosecution is beling led by Police Inspector Keith Arnaud.

More details soon.