A homeless Malian man shot by the police when he charged at them with a knife was mentally unfit at the time of the crime, a magistrate ruled yesterday.

Souleymane Samake, 26, who was diagnosed to be suffering from hallucinations and psychosis, will be held at Mount Carmel Hospital under the care of psychiatrists.

Three police officers were investigating reports of a man living in a cave at Għar Ħasan in Birżebbuġa on March 30.

They found Mr Samake in the cave and, at one point, he suddenly produced a nine-inch knife and tried to attack the officers.

They used pepper spray but this seemed to have no effect on him and the officers fired six shots in his direction, two of which hit him in a leg and the abdomen.

Mr Samake was eventually charged with attempting to kill the officers and “living an idle and vagrant life”.

After Magistrate Edwina Grima decreed that Mr Samake was mentally unfit during the commission of the crime, the case against him was dropped.

She ruled that he be kept at Mount Carmel Hospital for the foreseeable future.