Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/589122
www.maltatoday.com.mt wednesday edition wednesday • 21 OctOber 2015 • issue 439 • published every wednesday and sunday €1.00 Newspaper post Accused in wife's murder told children in letter he'd kill himself Matthew agius The prosecution in the trial by jury of Nizar el Gadi, accused of the mur- der of his estranged wife in 2012 yes- terday afternoon exhibited mobile phone evidence, placing the accused in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene at the time of the murder. 36-year old el-Gadi is being tried for the wilful homicide of lawyer Margaret Mifsud, who was his ex- wife and the mother of his two chil- dren, in April 2012. The jury began on Monday with the prosecution highlighting how el Gadi had changed his version of events. During yesterday's sitting, the jury was told how the accused was violent towards his estranged wife, and had tried to strangle her on one occasion. el Gadi took notes in the dock as Inspector Keith Arnaud decon- structed the statements released by the accused during questioning, us- ing CCTV footage and positioning data from mobile phone broadcasts. Moreover, in a letter to his children after their mother's murder, el-Gadi denied killing Mifsud and told them "if I commit suicide it is because I love your mother very much." The accused had told the police that he had an intimate encounter with the victim in her car near her Birkirkara home at 8pm before she went out for dinner with friends. But this, together with the man's call pro- file and location data from his mobile phone, did not fit in with the timeline which he had given. In fact a top-up request from his phone, made at 7:43pm placed him in the St Julian's area, not Birkirkara as he had claimed, said the inspector. Arnaud also exhibited a rental agreement for the accused's car, which had been leased on the 18 April 2012 in the morning. The ac- cused had told the car company that he had family visiting from Libya. however, it was seen parked near empire cinema in Bugibba at 0100 on the 19 April. Page 2 Muscat promises to up his game on environment Prime Minister says he is 'proud to be a salesman for families and businesses,'accuses Opposition leader of 'bitterness and negativity' in 2016 Budget speech Jurgen Balzan IN a two-hour speech in Par- liament, Prime Minsiter Joseph Muscat Muscat went to great lengths to discredit the opposi- tion leader's economic creden- tials while stressing his gov- ernment's economic successes, which have seen the country reg- ister exceptional growth rates. "My job and my duty is to pro- mote our country. I am proud to be called a salesman for the good of families and business. I am proud to be a salesman of invest- ment … not a salesman of envy and bitterness," Muscat said. In clear reference to the grow- ing awareness on the environ- ment and recent protests against the loss of ODZ land, Muscat said "we have learned a lot on the environment and we must not content ourselves with doing better than our predecessors." however, insisting that "we need to up our game" Muscat said this goes beyond land use, Muscat said his government would be investing and sup- porting a number of projects in the southern part of the island, including the construction of a private university in Bormla and ODZ land in Zonqor, Marsas- kala. While relentlessly highlighting the PN leader Simon Busuttil's slipups in his 2016 Budget criti- cism, Muscat outlined his vision for the country. "We are changing this country and Malta is changing for the better, Muscat said in his open- ing remarks, adding that his government will ensure Malta is "future-ready" and on par with richer countries such as Singa- pore and Luxembourg. "We aspire to make Malta the best place in the world to raise a family," Muscat said, adding that he aimed at guaranteeing coming generations "a future" in Malta. This, he said, cannot be achieved without a sound econ- omy as he listed a number of measures introduced in the 2016 Budget. "Previously people asked how much they have lost follow- ing a budget. Nowadays people ask themselves what they have gained," he said. In reply to the opposition's crit- icism on government's growing expenditure, Muscat emphati- cally said, "yes we're spending more money on our children's education and on health and we are proud of this." On the other hand, he added, government's income had also grown despite income tax cuts. "This government is the most pro-business administration of all time and we are proud of it," Muscat said, adding his govern- ment is creating jobs and safe- guarding workers' rights. Page 5 Prime Minister Joseph Muscat outlined his vision for the country and expressed his conviction that the country's economy is as strong as ever PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Ray attaRd