Attempted murder | Shooter was not suffering from psychosis

A court-appointed panel of mental health specialists have told a jury that former policeman Carmel Cutajar had not been suffering from psychosis at the time he shot his estranged wife Maria, but said that he had shown signs of exaggerated jealousy towards her.

Cutajar, 51, from Rabat, is pleading not guilty to attempted murder, grievously injuring the woman, carrying an unlicensed firearm and committing a crime he was duty bound to prevent.

He had been arrested after going to the Point De Vue guesthouse, where his estranged wife had been working, at around 1pm on 26 September 2012. The couple had argued in the car park in front of the building before he allegedly shot her in the torso. Cutajar then took off in his car, before turning himself in at a police station, from where he was escorted to hospital.

Four shots were believed to have been fired in all; three directed at the woman and the fourth was discharged when Cutajar attempted to shoot himself, although an A&E consultant who also testified this morning, described the self-inflicted wound as “superficial.”

This morning, under cross-examination by defence lawyer Mark Vassallo, Inspector Keith Arnaud testified that during his 25 years of service in the police force, the accused had only been disciplined twice - “There was never anyone who had complained or reported the accused.” Cutajar had retired from the force in 2012.

Psychiatrist Dr. Jean Pierre Giorgio, who had been duty consultant at Mount Carmel hospital at the time of the accused’s admission, testified that Cutajar had spent around three weeks there.

“He was agitated... there had been an allegation that he shot his wife.”

“There were symptoms of exaggerated jealousy regarding his wife,” recalled the witness. “There were no psychoses; paranoia, voices and the like.”

“There was an element of obsessiveness in his character,” the consultant added

Giorgio remembered noting “signs of pathological jealousy,” but as Cutajar had been under arrest, he was discharged from his care as soon as he was certified as being fit to face charges.

The patient had not been under his care long enough for the psychiatrist to make a solid diagnosis, Giorgio explained, so this was a differential diagnosis. He remembered Cutajar as having told him that he had not known what he was doing at the time.

Cross examined by Vassallo, the psychiatrist recalled the accused as being agitated and worried about the situation. Asked if he was depressed, the witness qualified that description, explaining that he was depressed by the situation, but not clinically. Cutajar had insisted that he loved his wife and said that he was jealous of her.

Clinical Psychologist Bernard Caruana had carried out psychological testing on the accused. His test scores had shown a slightly above average tendency towards schizoid personality, dependant personality and compulsive personality disorders, but they had not been clinically significant. He did not suffer from these personality disorders, Caruana clarified. “We all have traces of these disorders.”

Giorgio told the court that the report had concluded that at the time of the commission of the offence, Cutajar had not been legally insane. Psychosis would have meant that that the accused had been detached from reality and from the evidence, this had not been the case, said the expert. “We felt, however that there may have been character problems that may have led to the incident.”

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder may have played a part in this incident, he added. This disorder manifested itself in rigid thought patterns and a need for things to be precise, explained the witness. “He is inflexible in his thoughts and once he becomes convinced of something, it is hard for him to think of alternatives.”

The accused had told the doctors that he had moved on and had “forgotten” his wife, but the panel had not been certain of this. “Due to his rigidity, we had not been convinced that he would be able to stop fixating on or having intense thoughts of his wife.”

The proceedings continued with an eyewitness telling the jury that he had initially thought the shooting was part of a film scene. 

The elderly Saqqajja resident told judge Edwina Grima how, the area had been used for filming at the time. He had been at home waiting for someone when he heard shouting from across the street and looked out. He had seen a man and a woman arguing and then heard two shots. 

But the witness thought it strange that the woman had been shot twice and not fallen over, so he had gone back inside, thinking it was a movie scene being filmed. 

He recalled a police inspector who had knocked at his door as remarking that “you must have had a view of everything.”

“I told him that the scene would have been more realistic had the woman collapsed after being shot twice,” he smiled.

After being told that it was the real thing, he was asked to give his testimony at the police depot.

In court today, he testified to seeing the woman screaming and the man chasing after her. “Then he raised his gun and fired two shots... poom-poom.” 

The witness estimated that the accused had been 20-25ft away when hehad fired the shots. The woman entered a doorway and closed the door behind her. The man drove off. “That was the end of the scene,” he said, to chuckles in the courtroom.

Earlier this afternoon Brigadier Maurice Calleha, Jesmond Cassar and PS Jonathan Attard presented their ballistics report. 

Five spent cartridge cases were recovered, one of which had misfired, said the brigadier. The weapon, a Belgian-made, five shot .32 calibre revolver is over 100 years old.

The lack of damage caused by the round was most likely due to the age of the ammunition, the Brigadier opined, adding that the absence of scorch marks on skin and clothes of the accused-  normally associated with self-inflicted gunshot wounds - would also tend to indicate that the ammunition was old.

The bullets which hit the victim may have been fired from the revolver recovered. 

There was a considerable difference in lethality between the ancient revolver and the police-issue glock, the court was told. The judge asked what the damage the revolver could have caused, taking into account its age and the ammunition. “The round is small, the barrel is short and it has a short range. It depends on where it hits you”

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.