Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1403840
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 AUGUST 2021 8 NEWS THE ambush and murder of Ċikku Vella by my brother Franġisk (Ċikku Fenech) took place in 1963, but its roots go back a few years before that. When Franġisk bought his first horse at around the age of 17, it was Ċik- ku Vella that sold it to him. He helped Franġisk break the horse for cart work. I was only about five, but I remember that Franġisk looked up to him like a fa- ther figure, and it was always "Ċikku said this and Ċikku said that". He even bought his first gun, an old muzzle loader, from Ċik- ku. This relationship did not last long. Franġisk got it into his head that Ċik- ku was playing him for a fool and the adulation turned into pure hatred in a matter of days. This was the first time that Franġisk started dropping hints that he wanted to kill Ċikku. Things got so bad that our parents de- cided that he should be sent away before anything bad happens, and there was nowhere further than Australia. That was how very quickly he found himself on the way to Australia by air. Our par- ents were so concerned, that they paid his passage in full on a plane, rather than wait a few more months to get him a subsidised ticket on a boat. A lot of people say that his dispute was about land. But this was not the case. The family had been in a big court case about some land but it was with the British military. We were represented in the case by the MP John Maria Camill- eri, which we won in court; and then the ruling was immediately overruled by the Governor-General of Malta. I know I was young at the time, but apart from taunting Franġisk about this, Ċikku Vel- la had nothing to do with this land – al- though I am sure that Franġisk conflat- ed the two issues. When he returned to Malta, all the family hoped that he had changed, calmed down and perhaps settled down. Ċikku Vella had also given Franġisk a dog, which he named 'Wolf'. We had looked after it for him while he was in Australia and it became a much loved member of our family, especially by the younger members. When Franġisk re- turned, he claimed it back, but a couple of months before the incident, the dog disappeared. When we asked Franġisk where the dog was, he claimed com- plete ignorance as to its whereabouts. Then there was murder. And the family did not have much more infor- mation regarding the actual event than the general public. Franġisk was re- leased about four years later after the murder. By now the rest of the fam- ily had migrated to Australia, but because our father could not stand liv- ing in Australia, my parents and I had returned to Malta. One day I opened the door to see who was knocking and there he was. By now I was 16, working on the family farm with our mother. Franġisk immediately took over. It was during this period before I too took off to Australia, when Franġisk took every opportunity to boast to us about his deeds in private, while culti- vating his victimhood in public. First the dog. Far from disappearing, it was Franġisk that had deliberately put it down. Due to some perceived disloyal- ty from the dog, and the fact that it had been Ċikku that had given it to him, he said that he had given it the death sen- tence, and strung it up by the neck and stabbed it with his pocket knife, while calling it 'Ċikku'. As to the fatal incident, this was no chance meeting, but it had been well planned. Franġisk kept an eye out on Ċikku Vella's movements to find out the best time to catch him on his own. He worked it out that the best time was when Ċikku was on his way to church on Sunday. The reason being that there would have been less people about. And more importantly he walked right past "Franġisk caught up with him and emptied the other shotgun into him. Ċikku Vella still did not go down and Franġisk was worried that he was going to survive, badly wounded maybe but alive" My brother, the criminal The brother of Ċikku Fenech, Michaelangelo Fenech, says no government should treat the name of a violent criminal like a quaint memory of a bygone past: here he explains why Frangisk 'Cikku' Fenech, aged 18, right before his emigration to Australia. His brother Michaelangelo says Fenech always had a tendency towards violence and intimidation, and keen to burnish his image of an outlaw