Cat A, Bruce (Verkingetorige — because he had green eyes like the Celts), on the left, was brought home from work in 2002. Cat B, (Marcus) Valerius (Corvus — I had come across this name in a book, Teach Yourself Latin, which I had bought at the time), in the middle, was also brought home from work in 2003. Cat C, Migilla (Parker Bowles — actually named after Princess Camilla, but my sister’s son used to pronounce it that way), on the right, was found in Mosta around 2006. Cat B died in January 2015 while I was abusively hospitalized during my second case. Cat C died on April 24, 2009. It became sick and could no longer stand. I took it to the vet, who gave it an injection, but unfortunately it passed away before I could bring it back for further treatment.

Cat C, Cat A and Cat B. I, the person everyone labeled as the 'Mosta animal killer,' mainly due to the unfounded accusations made by the police, was further stigmatized as 'mentally ill' from the very first case. As a result, any new accusations against me were easily believed. Ironically, this so-called animal hater let his pets sleep on his bed, eat from his plate, and took them out for fresh air whenever possible. In fact, my cats followed me outside, a sign of the strong bond between us - something that should have convinced the police even more of how much I truly loved animals. Yet, these were the so-called 'animal cruelty' photos they found on my laptop.

Cat A and Cat C

Cat B, Cat A, and Cat C. They always preferred my bed; the basket I made for them never stood a chance.

Here are Cat B and Cat A in a photo from around May 2010. Cat C had passed away about a year earlier.

Cat A and Cat B.

The cats that were still around in 2018, when I started going home for a few hours while on leave, were Cat A and Cat D. Cat C had passed away in 2009, and Cat B died in January 2015 after being locked in the hospital. Cat D, Luca (Magnotta — that’s when I first learned about his story), was a cat I had found abandoned at Ta’ Qali around September 2012, about a year and a half before my arrest.

Cat A and Cat D stayed at home in my care, left alone with my mother and made to sleep in the basket in my absence, with no authorities ever bothering to check on them. This alone is the clearest proof of my innocence and of the character assassination carried out against me by the police. They falsely accused me of maltreating and killing animals, despite not only knowing I had done nothing of the sort but being fully aware of it. They framed me. Yet for them, justice does not apply when it comes to such serious criminal acts. Instead, they launched a crusade against me, portraying me as if I had committed the worst crime imaginable.

There is a vast difference between collecting animals already dead on the roads — killed irresponsibly by others—and falsely twisting it into an accusation that I mistreated and killed them myself. It is like entering the underground remains of a church for historical research and being accused of violating tombs.

Worse still, they accused me as if I were someone who kidnaps, abuses, and kills children (animals) — even though I had three adopted children at home (3 cat pets). Yet at no point did they consider investigating them or sending support groups (from animal welfare or at least a veterinarian). The entire situation is filled with irony and contradictions, reeking of a setup from kilometers away. This makes it painfully clear how thoroughly they framed me when they among others accused me of animal cruelty and killing, despite knowing full well that I was innocent.

This is a photo I took on 24-Oct-19, showing Cat D, Cat A, and, in the bottom right corner, a small part of my mother. Not many days would pass before death came knocking at the door.

On Friday, November 1, my nephew called me. He told me that when he went home to sleep the night before, my mother had informed him that Cat A was dying under the stairs. He then took the cat to Ta' Qali animal hospital at around 10:30 p.m.

By the time he phoned me, the expenses had already risen to €150. The vets asked if I wanted them to put Cat A to sleep or continue trying to save him. They had found water in his lungs, removed a substantial amount, and he was responding well. My nephew told them to continue trying.

The situation reminded me of my father, who died in 2008 from the same symptoms. Mintoff hadn’t managed to kill him psychologically in the 1980s, but his sisters did in 2008.

Cat A seemed happy as we were bringing him home, purring softly. However, I noticed something was wrong — he began urinating on himself. When I placed him on the ground, he could barely stand. I thought about taking him back to the hospital, but I feared they would just put him to sleep. Instead, I took him home.

This video shows Cat A on November 3, 2019, at around 1:22 p.m. I placed a picture of the Immaculate Conception behind him, the same kind that the Legion of Mary sometimes used to distribute when they visited patients at MW3A, hoping it would bring a miracle and save his life.

It happened that on 3 November 2019 I was on leave for a few hours at home and needed to go to my sister’s house for internet access for an hour. When I got back I found Cat A taking his last breaths. I cleaned him briefly because he had made a mess, laid him back on a cloth, grabbed my camera, and started recording the video above. Not even ten seconds later he made his last movements and literally died in my arms while I filmed. The picture of the Immaculate Conception didn’t work the miracle I’d prayed for — for Cat A to recover — but it did allow me to get to him in time, which felt like a different kind of miracle. I can’t imagine how much worse the guilt would have been if I’d returned to find him already gone.

A few months earlier, in May 2019, my laptop’s hard drive failed. A repair shop quoted about €400 to fix it. I had seen some YouTube videos showing how some people managed to fix theirs, and while I was at my sister’s house I spoke about it with her daughter, who said she had some special screwdrivers and lent them to me. Following the video, I freed the stuck read head and recovered the drive. I was able to retrieve old photos of my cats — another small miracle, since I had thought the disk was lost (see the email where I told this story to a member of the Legion of Mary). Later, my sister’s son and I took Cat A to a taxidermist so he could remain with me as a lasting memory and as evidence of my innocence. If I had really been an animal abuser, the police’s first action would have been to confiscate him; they did not do that. Instead, the police intentionally framed me and assassinated my character, depicting me as someone who abused animals.

Cat A, around June 2020, after it had been prepared by the taxidermist. See also these emails I sent to the Animal Welfare authorities.

"Posuerunt me custodem in vineis" — a Latin phrase from the Vulgate Bible, Song of Songs 1:6, which translates as "They made me a keeper/caretaker in the vineyards." In the image above, you can see Cat D. After my mother passed away in 2021, my sister took him under her care. This photo was taken in May 2025, during one of his runaways — he had come just to be near me while I was working in a field during the few hours I was allowed to be on leave from the hospital.

Me, around 12 years old in 1989, together with my father, my sister, and some dog puppies, with the Mosta Rotunda in the background. Today, the church can no longer be seen, and my father passed away in 2008.