Haunted by her sister’s killer: Stacey Camilleri’s plea for justice and safety

Five years ago, Chantelle Chetcuti, 34, was fatally stabbed multiple times in Żabbar – a shocking murder that continues to haunt her relatives.

At the time, Chetcuti had ended a relationship with her former partner, Justin Borg. After 16 years, the relationship became acrimonious, and Chetcuti chose to move on with her life.

The evening she was murdered, Chetcuti was sharing a drink with a man in a local bar. Borg showed up and insisted on speaking to her outside, after which – by his own confession that same evening – he pulled out a kitchen knife and killed his former partner.

Beyond the trauma and the grief of losing their loved one, the Chetcuti family has had to deal with the legal aftermath.

Just eight months after Chetcuti was murdered, Borg was granted bail, with magistrate Rachel Montebello asserting that there was no legal or evidentiary basis on which to assume that a self-confessed killer would not abide by bail conditions. All Borg was obliged to do was pay his deposits and sign the bail book daily.

After sending in a written submission (reproduced with the author’s consent below), Stacey Camilleri – Chantelle’s sister – detailed the severity of the situation when talking to The Shift, exposing a systemic, obsessive pattern of harassment and outlining how her family’s desperate pleas for bail reform remain unaddressed.

This is her story, in her own words:

‘Malta is small, but he makes it even smaller’

“My name is Stacey, sister of Chantelle Chetcuti, who was stabbed in a street in February 2020. I am writing because it is unthinkable that something so wrong can remain unaddressed.

The man who confessed to killing my sister, Justin Borg, was granted bail just eight months later. Since then, he has appeared near my parents’ home. He spent weeks on the same street where my husband works, helping a friend move items between two shops, laughing as if none of it mattered.

When this stopped, he started driving by as if to remind him of what he’s done. This still happens to this day.

Several months ago, he even began working in the shop closest to my relatives’ home. The same shop I used to drive them to, the same relatives he visited with my sister for 15 years.

Malta is small, but he makes it even smaller. I visit my relatives daily, and I am encountering him more now than I ever did when he was with my sister. Every time I approach their locality, my brain goes on alert without control.

I start scanning every big black car, checking number plates to see if I am driving past my sister’s confessed killer. I do not know if what I feel is fear or disgust. I think it is both, mixed with anger.

When you do not just happen to see him by chance, but see him because he chose to drive by your place of work or because he placed himself where you cannot avoid him, that is another kind of torment entirely. Yet in the eyes of the law, it does not count.

…When bail is granted in very serious crimes, the conditions must truly protect both any surviving victims and their families. They must not be tormented by the one who destroyed their lives while waiting for a trial that never comes…

Justice without timelines is no justice at all. Timelines must be written into law because, without them, the law becomes another form of cruelty. We all know how many cases drag on for years. In that time, people rebuild their lives, some even start families, and then, after a decade passes, the case finally closes and the courts rip open every old wound.

I turned to those with the power to change the law, not for recognition of our pain, but for action that would ensure no other family is left unprotected. I truly believed they would want to prevent this kind of harm from happening again. This gap in the law is plain to see. How can anyone in leadership choose to look away?

I told Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri about the torment we endure because bail was granted without safeguards. He admitted the injustice is ‘still happening,’ yet chose to do nothing. Instead of addressing my plea for reform, he passed my email to the Victim Support Agency and the police.

To forward my plea to the police… when the breaches we reported were ignored, is an insult… I pleaded for stricter bail conditions, and he washed his hands of responsibility completely.

The justice minister wrote to me that ‘the pain you are enduring is unimaginable, and no family should ever have to experience such trauma.’ If those words are to mean anything, the law must be reformed so that no other family is left in this position.

He also wrote that ‘the ministry is neither indifferent nor inactive,’ yet in the same breath claimed bail and its conditions are ‘determined by the courts,’ distancing himself instead of taking responsibility for reform. The courts can only apply the law as it stands, and it is our leaders’ duty to change it when it fails the people it should protect.

He also added: ‘Your voice is being heard.’ But if my voice were truly being heard, my appeal for timely justice would not have been ignored over and over.

And this is why I turned to the prime minister, who wrote that he ‘naturally agrees’ with Minister Attard’s email, an email that never answered my question: “Is justice without timelines still justice?” To claim agreement with an evasive answer is to join in the evasion.

When I asked him the same question directly, he gave no reply at all. His silence speaks louder than words. Leaving victims’ families exposed without changing the law is not leadership; it is indifference.

By repeatedly refusing to answer a simple, direct question, our leaders have already answered. To do nothing about it is to accept injustice.

Even if the law changes tomorrow, nothing can erase the nightmare we are living in, but something can and must be done for others. The law must change, or the system will continue to fail the very people it is meant to protect.

This is about accountability and about a system that failed by allowing this to go on for so long. That’s why timelines must be written into law. Nothing was done before, and nothing is being done now to stop this from happening again.

This is not neglect, nor is it a mistake: It’s a choice to leave things as they are, and that should disturb everyone.”