Convicted murderer Cikku Fenech passes away

Convicted murderer Cikku Fenech, 74, has passed away, MaltaToday has learnt. He was living in an elderly home.

In the sixties, Fenech had given rise to one of the largest man-hunts in Maltese criminal history after murdering Frangisk Vella in Mosta in 13 June 1963.

To escape the clutches of the law, Fenech abandoned his home in Mosta and went on the run without telling his relatives where he was going.
For more than three months Fenech lived in caves in the Gnejna area and roamed in other parts of the island evading intense police patrols.

Fenech eventually decided to give himself up on 28 September 1963, after being assured of a fair trial and no police brutality, through a third party who acted as a broker between Fenech and the police.
As agreed with the police, Fenech was apprehended at Floriana near the fountain in St Anne Street, much to the amazement of then-police commissioner De Gray.

It was the fear of being handed down the death penalty, still an integral part of criminal law at the time, that made Cikku Fenech evade justice.

In an interview he gave in 2004, Fenech recalled those times: "I did not want to end up hanged like a rabbit. I told no one about my whereabouts, I couldn't trust anyone."

During the prosecution, the Crown's Advocate Victor Borg Costanzi had asked for the death penalty.