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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 DECEMBER 2024 MATTHEW FARRUGIA mfarrugia@mediatoday.com.mt 2024 LOOKING BACK Crime in 2024: Femicide, a dismembered Since the beginning of 2024, several high-profile crime stories have captured public attention. From murders and drug trafficking to human trafficking and violent confrontations with police, these are some of the incidents that have highlighted the crime landscape in Malta over the past 12 months. Shooting of Eric Borg in Rabat On 1 January 2024, as families across the islands ushered in the new year, police were called to investigate the first mur- der of the year: the killing of 27-year-old Eric Borg in Rabat. Borg was fatally shot with a shotgun following an argument and was declared dead at the scene. He was found face down with gunshot wounds on his back and side, and eyewitness- es told the police that he had been shot at point-blank range. The suspect, 39-year-old Noel Azzopardi, turned him- self in about three hours after the shooting. Following the murder, court sittings centred on the fact that Azzopardi had a history of psychiatric illness, but this did not prevent him from owning at least five shot- guns. In court, it emerged that when asked why he had shot Borg, Azzopardi stated that "a dark- ness" had come over him. Lat- er in the proceedings, a panel of psychiatrists found that the suspect suffered from serious mental illness and intellectual difficulties. Stabbing of Sandra Ramirez On 13 January at around 6:13am, Colombian national Fabian Eliuth Garcia Parada entered the Sliema police sta- tion and told officers that he had just killed a woman in an apartment. This was Malta's first femicide of the year. When police officers entered the premises, they found a dead woman lying face-up in a bed. The victim was identified as Sandra Ramirez, a 43-year-old Colombian, who was the ac- cused's ex-girlfriend. Ramirez had been stabbed and slashed 26 times with a knife bought by the alleged murderer the day before the killing from a local supermarket. Inspectors testifying in court described the scene as "macabre." It later emerged that Gar- cia Parada had proposed to Ramirez just a few weeks be- fore the murder while they were on a trip to Paris. Murder at Mount Carmel Malta's third murder of 2024 took place in Mount Carmel Hospital's forensic unit, when 54-year-old inmate Jesmond Gatt was found in a pool of blood on 13 July. He was found on the ground in his room, where he was housed with two other inmates. Gatt had a long criminal re- cord and was recently released from prison after serving a four-year jail term, according to court records. His initial bail request on the charge of arson had been denied, leading to his detention at the forensic ward. At the time, Prison Director Chris Siegersma said that the Correctional Services Agency had been informed that Gatt had "slipped and hit his head," and an inquiry was subsequent- ly launched. Months later, 22-year-old Serbian national Vuk Milic was charged with his murder. In court, it later emerged that Milic, who shared the room with the deceased, had alleg- edly confessed to the murder when speaking to a medical officer at the Correctional Ser- vices Agency. Gruesome femicide and police standoff On 12 August, Malta woke up to news of the shocking mur- der of Nicolette Ghirxi, who was stabbed to death by her ex-partner. Her killer was 50-year-old Irishman Edward Johnston. It is believed that Johnston killed his ex-partner late at night, as her home bore no signs of forced entry. However, the police would only come to know about the murder a few hours later. Af- ter killing Ghirxi in her Birkir- kara flat, Johnston headed to the Hilton Hotel in St Julian's. There, Johnston used a replica of a gun to threaten hotel staff as he demanded that a bartend- er get him a beer. Johnston eventually exited the hotel and went to a beach behind the building, where a three-hour standoff with the police ensued. Between mid- night and 3:00 am, Johnston kept his replica pistol pointed at his head. The standoff end- ed when he lowered the replica and attempted to rush a police officer. He was shot three times and was declared dead. His last words were, "Are you ready? Because I am." On the day of the murder, MaltaToday reported that this was not Johnston's first stand- off with the police. In 2012, he made a bomb threat in a restaurant in Glasgow. At the time, he entered the restaurant, ordered two glasses of wine, and told the waiter that he had a bomb under his jacket. According to news reports at the time, Johnston repeatedly said that he wanted the police to kill him as he threw items on the pavement outside the res- taurant. He was subsequently shot with a stun gun before be- ing arrested. One week before the Glasgow incident, Johnston had waved a fake gun in the Liverpool city centre. He was believed to have told witnesses at the time, "I'm either going to kill someone or get killed to- night." The murder of Nicolette Ghirxi prompted yet anoth- er soul-searching exercise in Malta, as questions arose about whether systemic failures led to another femicide. A dismembered body inside a floating suitcase Although it is not being treat- ed as a murder case, the discov- ery of a dismembered body in a suitcase floating just off the Gżira promenade will remain etched in Malta's collective memory as one of the most gruesome crimes of 2024. On 9 December, two children on a paddle boat found a suit- case floating between Manoel Island and Gżira and hauled it back on land. When they showed it to two adults, they in- formed the police that they had just found a dismembered body. The entire suitcase was taken in for investigation. The vic- tim, who at the time of writing remains unidentified, is be- lieved to be a Colombian man