Tensione a Marsaxlokk: lite tra vicini finisce nel sangue

The alleged aggressor, Theodore Spiteri, is said to have flipped after a noise disturbance. File Photo: Jonathan Borg

A man who allegedly inside a Marsaxlokk apartment block in an early morning rage on Wednesday was remanded in custody upon arraignment on Thursday.

Theodore Spiteri, a 32-year-old maintenance worker from Marsaxlokk, was tracked down after the woman called the Birżebbuġa police station claiming that she had been attacked with a knife.

That call came through around 8.10 am.

Officers rushed to Lepanto Street where the alleged attack took place. They came across a woman with a blood-smeared face and visible wounds on her face and upper body.

She told them that her neighbour had attacked her.

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Sources told Times of Malta that tensions had apparently long been simmering between the two neighbours. The suspect apparently flipped because of the noise disturbance he claimed the alleged victim had caused.

When the officers knocked at the suspect’s door, he let them in.

A search of the apartment yielded the weapon, a kitchen knife.

The man was arrested and read out his legal rights.

Upon arraignment today, he pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, carrying a knife without the necessary police licence, knowingly covering up the traces of a crime as well as wilfully breaching the public peace.

His lawyer, Alfred Abela, made no request for bail at this stage but requested the court to appoint a psychologist to examine the defendant and assess his mental state.

The court presided over by Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace, turned down the request, saying that it would be more adequate for it to be made at a later stage.

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However, the court recommended that the Prisons Director was to take such issue into account to do whatever was in the best interest of the defendant.

AG lawyer Valentina Cassar and Inspector Wayne Bonello prosecuted.

Lawyers Alfred Abela and Ishmael Vella were defence counsel.