Not guilty: Two men cleared of 2005 Sion Grech murder
Updated 6.33pm
Two men accused of murdering Sion Grech and dumping her body in a Marsa field have been found not guilty of the crime.
A nine-person jury cleared both Ismael Habesh and Faical Mohouachi of wilful homicide, in a verdict delivered on Friday evening.
The two men were also acquitted of crimes related to unlawful possession of a weapon and carrying a knife without a police licence - charges that prosecutors withdrew after realising that the offences did not exist in law at the time of the murder.
Grech's decomposed body was found in Marsa in April 2005. She was just 20 years old. An autopsy determined that she had been stabbed at least 17 times.
Habesh and Mohouachi were first questioned by police in connection with the crime that same month, but the investigation dragged on for years.
Jurors heard police testify that a woman who knew Grech had told the police in 2008 that she had seen Habesh and another man beat Grech on the night of her murder, then carry her into a field.
A police officer testified that the woman, Josephine Rapinett, had subsequently led investigators to the exact spot where the body was found.
That testimony was however somewhat contradicted a...