Husband wanted to "end it there"

Jurors in an attempted murder trial yesterday heard how an Mtarfa man shot his wife when he went home early from work, saw she had packed her belongings and was about to leave him.

PS Liliana Mifsud explained how she was in the area when she saw a crowd of people gathered near a garage and walked inside to see Claire Fenech lying on the ground bleeding and her husband Louis leaning over her, crying.

When the ambulance took the bleeding woman away the sergeant helped Louis Fenech onto a red stool in the garage. There he told her that he had shot his wife when he got home and saw that she was about to leave him.

"He cried all the time, even when he was taken to the police headquarters later on. He cried and said 'what have I done?'," PS Mifsud said.

The sergeant was testifying before Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono in the trial by jury of Louis Fenech, 41, who is pleading not guilty to the attempted murder of his wife Claire when he shot her in the garage of their Mtarfa home on April 26, 2001.

The bill of indictment, that was read out to the nine male jurors and the three supplementary jurors, two men and a woman, claimed that the Fenechs were going through marital problems as Louis Fenech suspected that his wife was being unfaithful to him.

On the day of the incident he got home from work to find that she had packed her belongings so he went to fetch his shotgun and shot her.

Claire Fenech, 33, took the witness stand and requested that she give evidence behind closed doors as she had a nine-year-old son to keep in mind.

After seeing that both parties did not object to the request the judge upheld it and ordered the public to leave the court room.

Earlier, former Police Inspector David Saliba said that on April 26, 2001, he was informed that there had been a shooting incident in Mtarfa.

When he arrived in Sir Temi Zammit Street he met PS Mifsud who told him that Fenech had allegedly shot his wife.

After cautioning Fenech the inspector spoke to him about the incident.

Fenech explained how that morning he had gone to work as usual but left work early as he was feeling unwell. When he got home he parked his car in the garage and saw another car with luggages and his wife walk up the stairs leading to the back yard.

He got out his shotgun, loaded it with five cartridges and fired a shot at the car to stop his wife from using it. Fenech's wife went back into the garage and after some time he fired a second shot in her direction, hit her in the leg and she fell to the ground.

Fenech then told police he put the shotgun aside and asked his wife why she was doing this to him. He then aimed the gun at her head but could not bring himself to pull the trigger so he aimed at her abdomen and fired a third shot.

Asked why he had fired the third shot he said he had seen his wife "shake like a rabbit" and wanted to end it there. At that moment, Fenech had told the inspector, he also wanted to shoot himself in the head.

Saliba added that when he went into the Fenechs' residence he found a letter that Claire Fenech had written to her husband.

In the letter, that was read out in court, she outlined the reasons why she felt she had to leave her husband and how she believed it was the best decision for both of them.

Ballistics experts Brigadier Maurice Calleja and PC Joseph Farrugia explained that on examining the scene of the crime and the weapon found on the scene they concluded that three shots had been fired before the gun was thrown to the ground and broken.

Two shots had hit the car door and were fired from a distance of about 1.5 metres. Lead pellets from one of those two shots had hit Claire Fenech in the leg.

A third shot, they explained, had been fired at Claire Fenech's abdomen from some two metres away.

The testimony that Dr Edward Despot gave on May 11, 2001, was read out in court as he was unable to attend the trial.

In the testimony Dr Despot explained that on April 26, 2001, he was working at St Luke's Hospital Casualty Department when Claire Fenech was rushed in. She was in a state of shock, had lost a lot of blood and was in danger of losing her life.

She was bleeding profusely from a leg wound, that was 10 centimetres in diameter, and had to be operated to stop the bleeding.

Dr Despot also examined Louis Fenech who was suffering from a chest pain that turned out to be caused by a state of severe anxiety.

The trial continues this morning.

Seniour Counsel for the Republic Stephen Tonna Lowell is prosecuting while Dr Giannella Caruana Curran and Dr Emmanuel Mallia are representing Louis Fenech and Dr Michael Sciriha is representing the wife.