Man threatened to shoot ex-partner, burn her house down, cut her throat, court told

A man from Hamrun has been remanded in custody after he sent messages to his ex-partner, threatening to shoot her dead on Wednesday.

42-year-old Bernard Pisani was arraigned before magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras on Friday morning, accused of misuse of telecommunications equipment, threatening and insulting the woman, causing her to fear violence, breaching a protection order and breaching his bail conditions.

Inspector Matthew Galea told the court that the man had sent threatening messages to the mother of his children, who was now living with another man. “He told her ‘I’ll shoot you, I’ll beat you up’ both verbally and through SMS,” said the inspector. The woman had been placed under a protection order by a previous court, the magistrate was told.

The woman’s lawyers, Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili explained that the two had a property and children in common, but were not married. “We have a woman being threatened with death, that he’d burn her house down. He told their daughter that he had a revolver and would use it on her mother and had made a slicing gesture on his neck towards the woman,” she said. “It is clear that he was going to murder her.”

The woman had also been beaten up by Pisani’s new partner, said the lawyer.

But defence lawyers Alfred Abela and Rene Darmanin retorted that the woman was an unfit mother. “She takes a 10-year-old to meet her boyfriend who is waiting for three drug trafficking juries,” said Abela. “It’s easy to accuse, but when the woman comes and gives him [the accused] the child because she wants to go see her new partner, when she wants to go out to eat… it’s the child who needs a protection order from the mother,” said the lawyer.

If there had been a threat, it was clearly an empty one, he said, because nothing had happened in the two days between the alleged threat and the woman filing a police report, he said. “The truth is that there is a dispute over property which must be decided by a court. There is no reason to keep him under arrest.”

The court, however, denied bail due to the risk of tampering with evidence and because it was not satisfied that the accused would obey his bail conditions.

A protection order was issued in favour of the woman, prohibiting Pisani from following or contacting her.

“It’s her who comes to me!” protested the accused. “But the order is on you,” replied the court.