The Russian woman found dead on January 31 had a drug and drink problem, according to her mother, who stands charged with her murder.
Tamara Gennadievan Boubekova, 58, stands charged with murdering her daughter Yulia Kalinina, 28, who was found dead in a Xemxija apartment.
Police inspector Therese Sciberras told the court that the accused had released two statements – making a full admission of guilt in the first but changing her version in the second.
She said that the Qawra police station had received a telephone call on January 31 at around 9.30 a.m. informing them thats the lifeless body of a woman had been found at a flat in Mariner’s Court, St Paul’s Bay. The circumstances in which it was found were suspicious and investigations were embarked upon.
A neighbour, Vincent Cefai, had found the body after he knocked on the door in the morning to see if the accused and her daughter needed anything.
The mother had stared blankly at him and told him she did not need anything. She went to sit on the couch, called her daughter three times, and when the daughter did not answer, he went to look for her inside. He found her in the open plan area near the kitchen on the floor. There was also a strong bad smell.
The police found broken glass all over the flat, blood stains on the floor and a broken ornament.
Inspector Sciberras said the victim was found face up in front of the balcony, her face red around the mouth, her fingers red with black tips. She had a forehead injury and a bite on one cheek.
When the police spoke to the mother, she seemed to be in shock. She was bruised all over and smelt of urine, indicating she had not taken a bath for a few days.
She communicated in English but was provided with an interpreter just in case.
Ms Boubekova told the police that she and her daughter had moved to Malta in 1994.
Initially, she claimed that a man named Paul, whom she could not give details about, together with her daughter’s separated husband Igor, had kidnapped them both and killed her daughter. They also drugged her and she found herself back at home one day. But when questioned further, she could not give any more details about the story.
She said her daughter had an eight year old daughter, she followed her university education in Malta, then went on to the UK to do her masters.
The two had gone to the UK together and later they returned to Malta. The woman told the police that her daughter was a very difficult person to live with while in the UK she into the habit of staying out very late at night drinking, returning in the early hours of the morning.
This behaviour worsened on their return to Malta.
The mother said that around 10 days before the body was found the daughter had gone back home and she had thought her daughter was on drugs because she had blackish lips and brownish fingertips. She told the daughter to stop taking drugs and remember that she was a mother.
She told the police that her daughter used to sometimes return hom in a drunken and druggish state and collapse on the floor for about 10 hours.
The mother used to block her nose to check if she was still breathing.
She then told the police that they had never come to blows and she had never pulled at her daughter’s hair.
Inspector Sciberras said the police thought the way the mother said this was strange and when the body was being lifted to be taken to the mortuary they noticed an amount of hair belonging to the victim under the body. It looked like somebody had pulled it out.
The accused told the police that she had had an argument with her daughter on the previous Wednesday or Thursday during which she had told the daughter to go to rehabilitation. She threatened her that if she did not, she would tell her father she was on drugs and he would stop giving her money.
The mother told the police that the daughter had told her that was fine, she would resort to prostitution.
The mother said that the daughter then fell on the floor into one of her states. She bit one of her cheeks to see if she was alive and when she did not move, she held her nose and her mouth together for about five minutes. The autopsy revealed that she did die from suffocation, Inspector Sciberras said.
She said the mother told the police that after five minutes she did not notice that the daughter had died and thought it was the same old story when she would pass out for hours on end and then wake up.
The daughter remained on a carpet for a couple of days while the mother went about normal life. She said that one day she smelt a bad smell and thought this was because the daughter had gone for days on end without taking a bath.
The police then asked her if she thought it was strange that her daughter was changing colour but she had no answer.
The mother also confirmed that on the Saturday before the body was found she had spent a whole day on the balcony. She did not know the reason why.
That weekend, Igor, had gone to pick up his daughter’s clothes from the flat and the mother stopped him from going up. She and threw the clothes to him from the balcony. She could not say why she did this. The police spoke Igor, who told them that his daughter had been living with him for the past 15 days.
The accused told the police she had been paying for a flat in Portomaso for her daughter because she wanted independence.
Inspector Sciberras said that in her second statement the mother told them that her husband had a very important job in Russia and a reputation to uphold. She said they were rich and she would hire the best lawyer to get her out of this mess.
Inspector Sciberras said that police went to the Portomaso flat, searched it and found a huge amount of expensive clothing, shoes which had not even been worn, uneaten food on the kitchen table, dirty pots and pans, something written on the mirror in lipstick but no credit cards and no money.
The mother told them she used to go and clean the flat and pay the rent.
At Xemxija they found two safes, which were both opened by the accused. One contained a half full bottle of vodka, the other a half full bottle of white wine. There was also some jewellery and documents.
The accused told the police she wanted to hide the drinks from her daughter who used to drink a lot. There were also a lot of empty vodka and white wine bottles at the Xemxija flat.
The accused’s husband Gregory Ubikov came to Malta to release a statement. He told the police he visited three times a year and that his wife and his daughter used to fight a lot. He said he left Malta on January 25, six days before the daughter’s body was found.
Between the time he left and the time the body was found, he had tried to call his family many times but they did not answer the telephone.
He told the police he had thought this was because his daughter had had a car accident and was caught drink driving that they did not want to tell him the cost of the payments he would have to make.
The case continues.