The unidentified shooter who killed a man and injured two others on Saturday night used a semi-automatic pistol, according to sources close to the investigators who say it is still too early to be certain of the motive.

Yunus Berndt, from the Ħal-Far Outreach NGO, places a flower at the roadside memorial for Lassana Cisse, 42, killed on Saturday night in Birżebbuġa. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The incident happened in Triq Tal-Ġebel, a country lane between Birżebbuġa and the Ħal-Far open centre, at about 11pm.

All three victims are migrants who were walking along the quiet rural road when they were shot at by a person in a white Toyota Starlet.

The sources on Monday told Times of Malta the motive had yet to be established, however, they did not exclude that this could have been a racial hate crime, noting that this was a main avenue being followed.

Read: Scene of migrant murder is hotspot for racial attacks

Given the dense migrant population in the area where the incident occurred, investigators’ “first instinct” on learning of the incident was to suspect it could have been linked to racial hatred, the sources said.

“That said, at this early stage, they cannot exclude that there may have been some other motive, which is not yet clear,” the sources were quick to add.

They said that though the police had not yet established the identity of the shooter, they were working on some promising leads as well as combing through CCTV footage taken from cameras in the neighbourhood.

The deceased, Lassana Cisse, a 42-year-old man from the Ivory Coast, was described by those who knew him as a quiet fellow, who kept to himself.

One of the injured is a 22-year-old resident at the Ħal-Far centre and the other is 45-years-old.