Police Ask Women Who Were Sexually Harassed By Abner Aquilina To File A Report
Police have asked women who claimed they were sexually harassed by murder suspect Abner Aquilina to come forward and file an official complaint, pledging to take it “very seriously”.
In an email to the press, Inspector Shawn Pawney said the police haven’t found any official reports related to the incidents and therefore cannot properly investigate them yet.
He urged people to file a police complaint, even anonymously or via the media.
“Many of these reports are very concerning and the undersigned together with the team assigned with this investigation, are taking them very seriously, but have found no reports relating to these incidents, and therefore cannot properly investigate these allegations,” he said.
After Aquilina was named as the main suspect in the murder of Paulina Dembska, Lovin Malta received numerous screenshots from messages sent by him, from his personal profile and other fake profiles on social media.
In most, Aquilina makes repeated requests for sexual interaction with the women, at points even threatening that he will simply show up to where they live or work. Aquilina would send either voice notes or messages to the women he was harassing online.
At one point, he even threatened to commit suicide if one woman did not return his advances.
“This is an example of what happens when we don’t take inappropriate comments and catcalling seriously,” one woman said.
“Of course sometimes we don’t know any better and we just shrug things off and don’t take them as seriously as we don’t really see much of it.”
“Us as women shouldn’t always have guys like him talk to us this way, this is why we as women are always afraid to do little things just as walking by yourself.”
Some women even claimed they sent these messages to the police.
Meanwhile, a woman detailed how she and a friend were confronted by an erratic Aquilina when she visited Xrobb l-Għaġin on New Year’s Eve.
“He came over the first time and we politely asked him to leave. He was darting around the beach back and forth, running around in quite an odd way. He eventually came right behind us and started hitting his head on the rocks behind us, there was even some blood,” she told Lovin Malta.
“We asked him again to give us some space and he started shouting at us, telling us that he won’t move away. He called his two friends before running off and leaving.”
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