Murder verdict, sentence confirmed on appeal

The Court of Criminal Appeal has confirmed a judgment that made history in Malta as the first conviction for wilful homicide when the victim's body was still missing.

On December 6, 2002, Gozitan Ronnie Vella was jailed for 30 years after jurors found him guilty, by eight votes to one, of the murder of his wife Jane when he pushed her off a cliff at Tas-Sanap, Gozo, in December 1999.

Due to the fact that Jane Vella's body was never found the case marked a number of firsts as it was the first murder case to go to trial without the victim's body ever being found and also the first conviction obtained for wilful homicide without physical evidence of death.

Vella appealed the guilty verdict and the punishment handed down. He claimed that the evidence produced during his trial was not sufficient for jurors to reasonably find him guilty of his wife's murder.

He also claimed that during the summing up the judge had misdirected jurors and this led to the misinterpretation of the law that was not applied correctly. Besides, Vella added, the punishment handed down by the judge was excessive.

On examining the summing up, Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Filletti and Mr Justice David Scicluna, who presided over the Court of Criminal Appeal, said they believed that it was, in essence, balanced and correct. The court said there was no valid reason to alter the verdict reached by jurors who had legitimately and reasonably reached their conclusion from the evidence presented in the trial.

The jurors, who had the advantage of seeing and listening to all the witnesses and ask any question they deemed relevant, had clearly accepted Vella's confession to the police that he had pushed his wife off the cliff.

As for the punishment, Vella faced life imprisonment and the first court had reduced the punishment by a grade when it noted that the verdict was not a unanimous one.

Through this judgment, the court concluded, the court was sending a message that such crimes should be punished severely.