‘Lethal weapon’ fugitive caught in Libya, his wife found dead
Jomic Calleja Maatouk to face extradition, as officers find body matching wife’s description
A Maltese fugitive couple that was on Europol’s most wanted list has been found in Libya, and one of the two has been found dead.
Jomic Calleja Maatouk was caught and arrested by Libyan troops on Thursday evening. Arresting officers told the Maltese authorities that his wife, Marzia, 24, was found dead.
The couple vanished last August, days after Calleja Maatouk was sentenced to five years in prison for importing explosives and attempting to buy a lethal poison on the dark web.
Their disappearance triggered a Europe-wide manhunt and led to Europol including the couple on its list of most wanted fugitives. At the time, intelligence sources said they believed the couple fled Malta by sea and was hiding in Serbia.
Work to track them down continued in the ensuing months, with the couple believed to have spent time in Italy before making their way to North Africa.
The Calleja Maatouk couple was located roughly 90 minutes east of Tripoli on Wednesday morning and the Libyan authorities were immediately informed through diplomatic channels.
Sources said Maltese-trained Libyan troops were dispatched to the area within hours. There, they are understood to have found a dead body that matched the description of Marzia Calleja Maatouk.
Jomic, 38, was found alive following a search of the surrounding area.
An autopsy will be carried out on the dead body in the coming days to confirm the identity and cause of death.
Marzia’s brother, Marvin Zammit posted a tribute to her yesterday morning, seemingly confirming the death.
“I won’t see you again, I can’t believe it,” he wrote on Facebook.
Calleja Maatouk, who is now in Libyan custody, is expected to be extradited to Malta, where he is wanted for having skipped bail.
He was described as a “lethal weapon” by a magistrate last year after the court heard how he first tried to purchase doses of radioactive material Polonium-210, killer poison Ricin and the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl online.
He told dark web vendors that he was targeting a person between 165cm and 175cm tall and that he needed five doses initially but would later need more.
When he was unable to source those toxins, he ordered an explosive, C-4, instead. The Maltese police were tipped off about that shipment and caught Calleja Maatouk through a controlled delivery operation.
It was a familiar criminal pattern for the Żebbuġ-based Calleja Maatouk: a few years earlier, he had been charged with importing gunpowder without a permit.
His wife was not involved in his dark web case. But she had her own legal troubles after she was caught with 340 grams of cannabis in a car in 2019. Jomic, at the time her boyfriend, was also in that car.
In the same month that Calleja Maatouk was sentenced to five years in prison for importing explosives, Marzia received a 15-month jail term for cannabis possession with intent to traffic.
Within weeks, they both vanished.
Marzia Calleja Maatouk’s family told Times of Malta they found the house the couple shared in disarray and said they feared for Marzia’s safety.
The Libyan operation will further strengthen diplomatic relations between Malta and
Libya’s Government of National Accord.
Malta has placed significant emphasis on improving its ties with Tripoli recently and regularly raises Libya-related issues in its interventions at EU level.
Malta has discussed ambitious energy plans with Libya, agreed on a secretive migration-related pact with the country and dispatched soldiers and rescue workers there last year following disastrous flooding.
“‘I won’t see you again, I can’t believe it,’ Marzia’s brother wrote on Facebook
ICJ orders Israel to ‘ImmedIately halt’ offensIve In rafah
The top UN court ordered Israel yesterday to halt military operations in Rafah, a landmark ruling likely to increase mounting international pressure on Israel more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The International Court of Justice also demanded the immediate release of all hostages still held by Palestinian militants, hours after the Israeli military announced troops had recovered the bodies of three more of the captives from north Gaza.
The Hague-based court, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, also ordered Israel to keep open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which it closed earlier this month at the start of its assault on the city.
The orders come ahead of separate meetings on the Gaza conflict later yesterday in Paris between the CIA chief and Israeli representatives on one side and French President Emmanuel Macron and the foreign ministers of four key Arab states on the other.
In its keenly awaited ruling, the ICJ said Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
Israel must “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance”, the UN court added.
“The court finds it deeply troubling that many of these hostages remain in captivity and reiterates its call for their immediate and unconditional release,” it said. (AFP)