A loud noise which sounded like a piece of furniture dropping from a great height was heard by a neighbour who lives next door to the place where a Ukrainian woman’s body was found in a lift shaft, jurors heard yesterday.

The neighbour, Raymond Bezzina, who was fined €300 for failing to turn up the previous day to testify, said that on the night in question he was sound asleep when all of a sudden a tremendous thump woke him up at 1.38 a.m. The incident took place in a block of flats in Buġibba.

Mr Bezzina took the witness stand in the jury trial of Sergii Nykytiuk, 41, residing at St Paul’s Bay, who is pleading not guilty to murdering his Ukrainian wife, Lyudmila, 35, on November 11, 2009.

The sound was so loud that he called the police because he thought it came from his roof. However, after they arrived minutes later, the police went to the roof and found nothing.

Hours later at around 8 a.m. he looked outside and saw a fire engine and the police hearse.

That was not the only disturbance from the block, he said, as he used to hear heated arguments between a man and a woman in the weeks leading up to the incident.

He would report these arguments to his sister-in-law, Sylvia Zammit, who owned the block, because they were so loud and could not sleep.

The trial is expected to continue tomorrow.