The police are not ruling out taking action against the injured man who was found next to the body of a 15-year-old girl at the foot of Dingli Cliffs.

Actor and drama teacher Erin Tanti, 23, who was airlifted from the scene and is being treated at the hospital’s intensive therapy unit, is under constant police watch.

Meanwhile, the funeral of the girl - Lisa Marie Zahra - was postponed after a court refused to release the body, pending investigations.

Mr Tanti and Ms Zahra, his student, who had both been reported missing on Tuesday, travelled in a car together to Dingli Cliffs in the early hours of Wednesday and were found 12 hours later on the rocks some 40 metres below. Mr Tanti was alive and communicated with his rescuers.

Under Maltese law it is an imprisonable offence to “assist” a person to take their own life, even if both parties intended to suffer the same fate.

Mr Tanti, who often went by the name of Erin Stuart Palmier, was taking part in the play Festen, which opened last weekend and is running again this weekend. The play, an adaptation of the Danish film by the same name, is about long-submerged family secrets, suicide and sexual abuse.

More in Times of Malta and the e-paper on timesofmalta.com Premium.