Gozo murder verdict expected today
David Zerafa at the scene of the crime in Marsalforn last Thursday. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi Tired jurors in the murder trial of David Zerafa, who stands charged with killing Gozo lawyer Michael Grech, are expected to reach a verdict today after...
[attach id="260798" size="medium"]David Zerafa at the scene of the crime in Marsalforn last Thursday. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi[/attach]
Tired jurors in the murder trial of David Zerafa, who stands charged with killing Gozo lawyer Michael Grech, are expected to reach a verdict today after asking for a break in proceedings last night following several hours of closing arguments.
The trial, which got under way last Monday, saw the jurors being shown gruesome photos of Dr Grech lying face down in his Marsalforn garage with a broken skull and lying in a pool of blood.
They were also taken to the garage, which is adjacent to Dr Grech’s apartment and its common entrance, where his blood had left a trail leading into the garage.
Dr Grech’s wife, Maria, told the jury she had come face to face with her husband’s killer inside the apartment block after she heard a commotion. She then found the body inside the garage.
Following the closing arguments of the defence and prosecution lawyers, Mr Justice Quintano gave a five-and-a-half hour address to the jurors
Crucially, she said she looked at the man’s eyes, which she described as almond shaped and very particular, leaving such an impression on her that she would never forget them.
Unbeknown to her, the man she had selected from an identity line-up, Mr Zerafa, had allegedly confessed to two inmates while on remand for an unrelated crime. The inmates said he told them he was the man who killed Dr Grech.
On Sunday, the Attorney General filed an urgent application to have Mr Zerafa’s brothers, Emanuel and Jeffrey, testify again after inconsistencies in their claim that their brother was at home on the night of the murder.
In their first version, the brothers did not categorically place him at home and said he could have been in Malta, only to change t during the trial to say that he was definitely at home and had not left. Questioned by Mr Justice Lawrence Quintano, Jeffery Zerafa said he was so certain that his brother was at home on that fateful night that he would cut off his own head in testa-ment to it.
Following the closing arguments of the defence and prosecution lawyers, Mr Justice Quintano gave a five-and-a-half hour address to the jurors explaining the law, after which they asked to be able to deliberate this morning.