Convict who sold minor lethal dose caught with heroin

A man who is currently being held in custody awaiting trial for allegedly selling a lethal dose of heroin to 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler in 2001, was caught receiving drugs during a contact visit with members of his family in prison.

David Gatt, 33, faced Magistrate Edwina Grima last Wednesday, as Police Inspector Pierre Grech took the witness stand, explaining the details into the seizure of a sachet containing heroin in prison.

Grech said that prison guards who were overseeing contact visits between inmates and relatives at Corradino Prisons were alerted to a suspected movement made by Gatt.

He explained that Gatt was being visited by his mother and some other relatives at the time.

"When asked to stand up, Gatt was seen throwing something on the floor," the Inspector said, adding that when he was made to pick it up, he denied that it was his or that he had anything to do with it.

All were arrested and placed under investigation, while Gatt was interrogated and charged with possession.

Gatt - who is from Gzira - is awaiting trial connected to the murder of Rachel Bowdler, trafficking in heroin and cocaine and relapsing.

Known as 'Il-Gulija', Gatt was arrested and charged with Bowdler's death in 2009, three years after an entire family was jailed for letting  the 18-year-old woman die in a field from a drug overdose in 2001.

He denied all charges connected to Bowdler's tragic death and having sold her the lethal dose of heroin.

In 2006, Concetta Decelis, her husband Carmel and their son Jason were jailed for over 40 years between them for allowing Rachel Bowdler to die when they dumped her in a field in the limits of Mġarr.

Bowdler was found in a field in the area known as Ras il-Ġebel on 13 May, 2001.

Following a trial by jury in June 2006, Decelis was jailed for 15 years and her son Jason for 25 in the first ever conviction in Malta for what is known as murder by omission.

The father, Carmel Decelis, was jailed for eighteen months as he was cleared of murder but found guilty of involuntary homicide.

On handing down judgment, the court pointed out that they had left the girl to die to avoid getting into trouble.

Their persistent omission lasted 12 hours in all - a time lapse in which, the prosecution had insisted, the girl could have been saved.