Maltese people

"Looking at these photographs after so many years, it certainly provokes emotions," recalls Ndricim Baci, who was then 22 and had left for Malta with his 15-year-old brother, Avni.

"Twenty-eight years have passed but I still remember those dramatic moments," adds Baci, who together with his family now lives and works in Italy.

Greece's Supreme Court rejected on Thursday a request by Malta to extradite Russian former bank employee Maria Efimova, a whistleblower who helped murdered Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia investigate money-laundering and alleged corruption in Pilatus Bank.

Maria Efimova, a Russian whistleblower who fed information about secret bank accounts in Malta to murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, surrendered to Greek authorities on Monday night.

Saying that she was in fear of her life, the former Pilatus Bank employee reportedly turned herself in to police at Athens's central Syntgama Square metro station.