The Moroccan woman given a suspended jail term for providing a concoction of pills to a pregnant Tunisian who wanted to commit an abortion has filed an appeal.
Soumia Mansouri was last week sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for three years after she admitted procuring a cocktail of drugs to help Raya Sellami Zammit end her pregnancy.
In her appeal, Ms Mansouri claimed that the state of Ms Zammit’s pregnancy was never confirmed and after her arraignment it emerged that the woman did not have an effective pregnancy and, therefore, could never have aborted.
When the defence asked the police to disclose the evidence against Ms Mansouri, the prosecution claimed it had “scientific confirmation” of Ms Zammit’s pregnancy and it was on the basis of this “incorrect information” that Ms Mansouri pleaded guilty.
He said he heard some sort of a heartbeat, meaning the baby was still there
Ms Mansouri is seeking to be cleared from the charges, to have the sentence revoked and for half the costs she paid to engage experts reimbursed.
The appeal was signed by lawyer Roberto Montalto.
The Sunday Times of Malta reported that, according to an ultrasound scan conducted two weeks before Ms Zammit decided to take the pills – when she thought she was five weeks pregnant – she was diagnosed with a “missed miscarriage”. The specialist who conducted the scan in a private hospital on October 27, Naged Megally, insisted he had never detected a foetus and that Ms Zammit had an empty gestational sac.
Ms Zammit visited Dr Megally a second time after continuing to experience breast tenderness even after her bleeding had stopped. “I visited Dr Megally again and, upon performing an ultrasound, he said he wasn’t seeing a baby inside me,” Ms Zammit told this newspaper.
“But then he tried a different form of ultrasound and he said he heard some sort of a heartbeat, meaning the baby was still there.”
However, Dr Megally insisted he had never detected a foetal heart.
No documents related to this second visit were presented to this newspaper.
“Dr Megally told me my baby was not doing well: that I was going to have a miscarriage,” Ms Zammit said.
“I was terrified I would give birth to a stillborn or that my child would be severely disabled. I wasn’t thinking properly. I was in extreme panic.
“I am already raising a daughter without a father. How will I raise a severely disabled child without a father?
“I have no family here in Malta. I have just found a job in which I’m really happy. How on earth would I ever manage?”
Ms Zammit has a seven-year-old daughter and has been living apart from her Maltese husband for the past three years.
She had been in a relationship with another Maltese for around a year and the couple had just split up when her pregnancy test proved positive. They are now back together.