A man accused of forming part of a gang that tried to rob a bank in 1996 vehemently denied being involved yesterday, saying he had never met any of the other men and that his ex-wife may be to blame for implicating him.
George Xuereb, 49, from Marsa, also alleged that the police inspector who had investigated him, former Police Commissioner John Rizzo, warned him during interrogation: “I will crucify you like Christ.”
Mr Xuereb was trying to convince jurors he had no involvement in the attempted hold-up on the St Andrew’s Mid-Med Bank branch on March 27, 1996, which was foiled by the police.
In between sobs, Mr Xuereb said his wife may have brought him into the affair, saying she was the only one who could have taken his mobile phone and the key to his grandmother’s house in Qormi, from where a plastic bag with his fingerprints was taken.
At HQ, he was questioned by some 20 police, including then Commissioner George Grech.
Most of his testimony was taken up by the problems he had been having with his then wife. Someone had told him she had been seen with Amadeo Brincat, a gang member who was never tried as he died a few years later.
“I spent 10 months and a week in preventive custody and I had a lot of time to think. When I see how my mobile vanished and ended up at Carmelo Spiteri [who is in jail over the hold-up] and how the key to the Qormi house vanished from my bunch and Spiteri was found there, and how the plastic bag with my fingerprints was found by the police... these are all pieces of the jigsaw puzzle,” he said.
“I have passed through martyrdom for 18 years. This is the moment I have been waiting for all this time (to clear my name),” he said.
Mr Xuereb was arraigned in September 1997, 15 months after the incident. His son was five years old at the time.
His statement that he did not know any of the men was corroborated in earlier testimony by Mr Spiteri, who spoke about three men being involved and never mentioned Mr Xuereb at any point.
He told jurors he was the mastermind. “It was my idea. Amadeo Brincat and I met a fortnight before and went to a house in Qormi where we placed the weapons and balaclavas. He told me it was a residence of someone called Carmen. The weapons were both his. There was a shotgun and if I am not mistaken there was a revolver too,” Mr Spiteri said.
I have passed through martyrdom for 18 years. This is the moment I have been waiting for all this time
Mr Spiteri said he had planned the heist with Joseph Polidano, who served 10 years in jail over the attempted robbery.
He said they met in Żabbar, drove to St Andrew’s in a stolen white Golf with the weapons and balaclavas in plastic bags, and jumped into a stolen white van that was parked near the bank.
Mr Brincat and Mr Polidano ran into the bank and he followed them. He was not carrying a weapon.
“Amadeo hit the policeman with the shotgun and I took his service weapon. After some time one of us, probably Mr Polidano, said the bank was surrounded (by police). We decided to abandon the plan and ran out of the bank.
“When I got to the main door, Amadeo was already in the van. There was Mr Polidano right outside the door on the ground and he was losing a lot of blood. I helped him into the van and we drove off,” he said.
Mr Brincat drove the van and when they got to Wembley Garage, they dropped Mr Polidano off and escaped in Mr Brincat’s maroon Daewoo which he (Mr Brincat) had parked there.
They drove to the Qormi residence where he then lived for more than a month “to get away from the police and hide the evidence”.
He said he was not hit in a shootout with the police and also denied firing any shots. All he had on his leg was “a scratch”.
However, court expert Mario Scerri told jurors that tests carried out almost two months after the crime revealed Mr Spiteri had been hit by a bullet which fractured the small bone of his shin.
Dr Scerri said flower and butterfly tattoos on Mr Spiteri covered the bullet’s entry and exit points. They had been done between five and 10 days before the examination, when Mr Spiteri could not even walk with pain.
Fingerprints expert Joseph Mallia said fingerprints found in the Golf did not match those of the accused but those found on a white plastic bag inside the abandoned van matched Mr Xuereb’s middle finger.
Mr Rizzo, who in 1996 was an inspector, testified that Mr Xuereb had the key to the house in Qormi where Mr Spiteri was found.
Under cross examination, he said he could not remember that bank employees or the policemen involved all saw three people. What he remembered was that Mr Polidano mentioned there were five.
The case continues today.