Body released for burial,but case is still a mystery

The body of a Moroccan woman found dead at her Mġarr house in September has been released for burial but investigators still do not have a perpetrator.

The woman’s funeral was held yesterday though the investigations into the murder are far from closed.

Mother-of-two Meryem Bugeja, 40, was five months’ pregnant with twins when she was killed on September 25.

The death was initially believed to have been accidental but a full-blown murder investigation was launched when the autopsy revealed two deep gashes to her head.

Sources said inquiring Magistrate Doreen Clarke released the body for burial because all the possible tests had been done and the body was therefore no longer required for investigation purposes.

The sources said that forensic experts ran DNA tests on the unborn twins and established that their father was a foreigner, so far unidentified.

At one point, investigations centred on the woman’s estranged husband, Joseph Bugeja, who had been arrested for questioning. But sources close to the investigation said there was nothing that conclusively linked him to the murder.

The couple had been undergoing separation proceedings for the past two years and the children met their father regularly. The day the woman’s body was discovered, Mr Bugeja had collected his daughters from the matrimonial home in Mġarr an hour after school and found them on the doorstep because no one had opened the door for them.

He took them out and when they returned four hours later there was still no answer, so Mr Bugeja and the children went to the police station to file a report.

The corpse was found at 8pm after members of the Civil Protection Department entered the house through an open window.

Investigators at first believed she had hit her head against a wardrobe after fainting because of low blood glucose levels (she was diabetic).

However, an autopsy revealed two deep wounds in her skull that seemed to have been caused by a blunt object.

Tests concluded that she had been dead between 10 and 12 hours.