Roderick Cassar Told Police To Kill Him And Said He Didn’t Want To Go To Jail
Details of the 17-hour standoff in Qrendi between police and murder suspect Roderick Cassar emerged in court today as the case against the man charged with murdering his wife, Bernice Cassar, commenced.
As reported by Times of Malta and MaltaToday from court, inspector Wayne Camilleri testified that he was called up to Cassar’s home on 22nd November at around 9am, shortly after Bernice Cassar’s body had been found by her workplace in Marsa.
Cassar had locked himself up and police didn’t initially know whether his children were with him, although they eventually received confirmation that they had gone to school.
Police exchanged several phone calls with Cassar, with the murder suspect confirming that he still had the gun on him.
Cassar repeatedly told police that he wanted to kill himself, warning that he doesn’t want to go to prison. However, he admitted that he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger and at one point urged officers to shoot him themselves.
As the standoff dragged on into the early hours of the morning, Cassar was posting to Facebook, telling his children that he is sorry and that he loves them.
Eventually, police took direct action, obtaining a key to the common area of the apartment block and climbing to the second floor.
After finding the door to Cassar’s apartment locked, police tried forcing it open before shooting it down.
They found the murder suspect in the main bedroom with a gun in his hand. Police ordered him to drop the weapon; Cassar obliged and was promptly arrested at around 2:30am.
He was initially sent to Mater Dei, where he was deemed mentally and physically fit, and then on to police headquarters for interrogation.
Cassar is the first person to be charged with femicide since Malta updated its laws earlier this year. He has also been hit with a raft of other charges, including holding a victim against her will, possessing a firearm without a proper permit, stealing the victim’s phone and car key, and threatening a bystander.
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