Attempted murder trial: Husband had suspected infidelity

A man on trial for the attempted murder of his wife had found out that she had sent a text message, apparently professing her love to someone else before he shot her, the jury trying him has heard.

Day one of the trial by jury of Carmel Cutajar, a former police constable who is accused of the attempted murder of his wife, Maria, resumed this afternoon with Inspector Keith Arnaud from the homicide division of the Criminal Investigation Department testifying.

He played a recording of the accused's interrogation to the jury, which took up the majority of the sitting this afternoon.

Towards the end of his interrogation. he had told inspector Arnaud that he suspected his wife was seeing another man. She had sent an SMS to his niece by mistake, which read: “I love you, thank you for everything. I'm going to hang up because he's here.” 

"My siblings had told me about it after the separation, after she left,” lamented the man. He claimed that after realising her mistake, the sister had warned her daughter to keep her mouth shut. “Then she started taking two mobile phones to work.” The wife would leave home to work- even on days which she had normally not been rostered, the accused had said.

He had confronted her about a caller on her mobile phone, listed as “Joe.” She appeared taken aback, he told police, and then had claimed that he was a relative of hers. “He was so stupid that one time he sent her a message at night,” he recalled bitterly, but his wife had explained that it had been sent by her mobile telephony provider.”

He denied ever beating her, his tone becoming one of astonishment when the inspector is heard telling him that his wife had told police that he would beat the children. “I would shout at them, yes, but I never touched them.”

To the contrary, the accused claimed that it was his wife who would beat him, in particular when he would insult her mother, on one occasion grabbing him from the throat. It wasn’t the first time that she would pick up a knife and hold it to her breast or threaten to throw herself off the roof, he added.

“She left me three months ago and took the children with her,” the accused is heard saying on the 2012 recording. It was the third time that his wife had abandoned the matrimonial home, he claimed. “The second time, she left maybe I shouted at her a little. My voice is like that.” The first time she had left was when the eldest child was five, he alleged.

Asked what had led to the couple's separation, he blamed his wife, saying she would shout at him and criticise everything he did.

The topic moved on to the events of the 26th September. In the preceding weeks, he said, his estranged wife had told him that the youngest daughter did not want to see him any more. The eldest had already cut her ties with her father.

But he would go wait for his wife outside her workplace, he said. “I loved her, do you understand? I loved her, sir. I loved her a lot, I couldn’t bear not seeing her. I would ask her to come back.”

“I left my sister’s house at Dingli. I don’t remember what happened after that … just a black cloud.”

Inspector Arnaud testified to being informed that after being arrested, Cutajar had spoken to an old friend of his, a police officer, who reported the accused as telling him “we’ve done it Pete, we shot each other.”

The inspector had spoken to the accused's wife, Maria Cutajar, who told him of the couple’s stormy relationship. She had described the accused as very possessive and violent towards both her and the children. She had left home for domestic violence shelter Dar Merhba Bik and had started working as a waitress at a Rabat restaurant to support herself. After moving out, the violent behaviour had stopped, she had told police.

The couple had an agreement whereby he would meet the children near Saqqajja or San Anton, but the youngest daughter had started refusing to see the father. When asked why, she said that her father had taken her to Dingli cliffs and asked her to approach him near the edge. She had not complied. On another occasion, he had told the child that there was something for her in the luggage boot of the car, but she had refused to look.

When asked what the problems with his wife were, the accused conceded that they would often argue. During interrogation, he was calm and answered questions, explained the Inspector, adding that when asked about the shooting itself however, he would simply refer to the darkness.

He did not give details. “Kelli ghamad, kelli ghamad” he insisted several times to police.

Arnaud reported a resident as telling police that he had heard the shot and upon looking outside, saw a man chasing a woman and firing in her direction. The witness had reported being suprised that the woman did not fall to the ground after being shot. “I thought they were filming a movie.”

The victim had given her account of events when she had been questioned by the inspector,  explaining that the accused had asked whether she wanted to go home. He put his hand in his pocket. She heard a loud bang and felt a searing pain in her chest. She ran away and heard another three or four shots fired, before she reached the Point de Vue, closing the door behind her and awaited medical assistance.

The trial resumes tomorrow morning.

Judge Edwina Grima is presiding. Lawyers Giannella Busuttil and Anthony Vella from the Attorney General's office are prosecuting. Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo are defence counsel.