Dragana Mijalkovic, a 44 year-old Serbian woman, has been jailed for 5 and a half years after she was cleared of the murder of David Grant and Neville Ayers, but convicted of knowingly allowing the men to suffer in circumstances which could probably cause serious injury or death.
British expats Grant, 67, and Ayers, 78, both died in an apartment in St. Paul's Bay, which they had shared with Mijalkovic.
The woman had filmed the two men as their health deteriorated, ostensibly to protect herself. Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech described the films as "degrading and disgusting," saying that the men's deteriorating health was taken advantage of in a "scandalous and obscene" manner.
The men needed help and not more ridicule, said the magistrate, decrying the filthy conditions in which they died.
The magistrate noted that the woman would sarcastically refer to the elderly men as "my darling" and "my love."
Aside from keeping them in a state which was harmful to their health, Mijalkovic ended up robbing the men not just of their money, but also of their dignity, said the magistrate.
Magistrate Frendo Dimech went on to note that when the accused had realised that they needed hospital treatment, she had started filming the men, and had still left them in their pitiful situation.
"It can't be said that she closed her eyes to their suffering because she opened them wide to take the videos."
In her considerations on punishment, the magistrate said that this was not an isolated act, but a course of "unfeeling and cruel conduct, lacking from every aspect of humanity" which spread out over a long time.
The court, noting that the woman was a first time offender in Malta, also observed that there were more than one victim and described the accused as a serious threat to society.
Mijalkovic was "a woman who had no qualms about living off elderly and vulnerable men, who when they needed her help, not only did she turn her back on them but also filmed their bad state. Her actions require that she be incarcerated and removed from circulation."
Not only that, but once she has served her sentence, Mijalkovic, whose permit to stay in Malta had long expired is to be removed from the country.
Inspectors James Grech and Fabian Fleri prosecuted. Lawyer Yanica Bugeja was legal aid counsel to the accused.
from The Malta Independent https://ift.tt/2OGmJjq
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