A woman yesterday described to jurors how her husband stabbed her after she and her sister had locked him in a car with them with the intention of not letting him out before he gave up his children and his home.

"When we locked him in the car he panicked and started hitting himself on the head. That was when he produced a knife... We had known he was not in his normal state of mind," Sandra Caruana said in an emotional testimony during which she declared she had forgiven her husband, Paul, whom she was now living with.

After choosing to take the stand, Mrs Caruana spoke in a soft voice as she told jurors what led her husband to strike her with a "normal kitchen knife" in the chest.

Mr Caruana, 33, of Zejtun is pleading not guilty to the attempted murder of his wife on June 12, 2003.

In the first day of his trial, Mrs Caruana explained that two days before the incident she had moved into her sister's house following a fight with her husband whom she had then been married to for nine years.

The fight broke out while they were in his van over a text message she received, since her husband suspected she was cheating on him.

"I started hitting him as he drove and then he hit me in the face... he had never raised a finger on me before that day," she said.

The following day, she went to the Zejtun feast to see her two daughters who were living with her mother-in-law.

"At the feast my brother Mario and sister Carmen started shouting insults at my husband who did not utter a word. They told him he would not get away with it, that they would stab him and take away the children, his house and his garage."

The following day, on June 12, Mrs Caruana went with her sister to check if her children were at school. After that they drove to her husband's garage.

Mrs Caruana yesterday said she remained in the car while her sister went to call her husband. She and her husband then sat on the back seat and her sister sat in the driver's seat.

But when she testified in the Magistrates' Court she had said that she and her husband sat in the front seats.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, presiding over the trial, cautioned her to tell the truth and threatened to arrest her if she did not.

"He was sitting to my left when he pulled out the knife from behind him and hit me in my chest... I think I was sitting on the back seat.

"The knife was a normal kitchen knife and did not have a point. Then I called my sister. She grabbed him and pulled him out of the car. Then his friends came around.

"I drove off and don't know what happened after that. Then I woke up in hospital where I spent 15 days," she said.

During cross examination Mrs Caruana explained that in the months before the incident her husband had not been his normal self. He had lost weight, was not sleeping at night and had a different look in his eyes.

He suspected that she was cheating on him which, in fact, she was.

When asked again about the incident, this time she said that on the day she and her sister locked her husband in the car and her sister started threatening him about the children.

Mrs Caruana added that she had fully recovered from her chest wound and declared that she had forgiven her husband.

Earlier, Mrs Caruana's sister Carmen Mifsud testified. She said that today she was no longer on speaking terms with her sister.

Mrs Mifsud denied being in the car when her sister was stabbed and said she was standing across the road.

After some time she heard her sister call for help and she intervened by pulling Mr Caruana out of the car.

Mrs Mifsud then called for help and Charlo Azzopardi, Charles Farrugia and Mario Ellul came and took Mr Caruana aside.

She took her sister to the Paola Health Centre from where she was rushed to hospital.

Charlo Azzopardi and Charles Farrugia recounted how, following the incident, they noticed that Mr Caruana - who they had known for some time - looked pale and in a state of panic.

They put him in a sitting position on the pavement but he ran away and tried to throw himself in front of a moving truck. Mr Farrugia, who ran behind him, managed to pull him to safety.

Senior Counsel to the Republic Mark Said is prosecuting.

Lawyer Giannella Caruana Curran and Emmanuel Mallia are appearing for Mr Caruana.