A slow, painful and agonising death was how a woman, victim of domestic violence, met her end at the bottom of a shaft after a violent argument with her husband, jurors heard yesterday.

Prosecuting lawyer Nadine Sant, followed by Police Inspector Chris Pullicino, told a story of a failed marriage and a jealous husband whose only reaction after his wife fell down a three-storey high shaft was to light a up a cigarette and drink wine.

Sergii Nykytiuk, 41, residing at St Paul’s Bay is pleading not guilty to murdering his Ukrainian wife, Lyudmila, 35, on November 11, 2009 in Ramon Perellos Street, St Paul’s Bay at the flat they shared with two men, Roman Kovacuk, and someone known as Vladimir, who could not be tracked down.

In her address to the jurors, Dr Sant somewhat poignantly said that there was nothing extraordinary about murder. Everybody heard about it before but to leave your wife to die an agonising slow death was definitely not normal and was very macabre.

Mr Pullicino testified that one of many arguments broke out during a birthday party for Mr Kovacuk when the victim told her husband she was no longer in love with him. At the party was Vitali Pidkypnyi, who Mr Nykytiuk believed she was sleeping with. The accused asked who had invited him but no one seemed to know.

All hell broke loose and the couple began arguing to the point that she left the room and fled to the bathroom where Mr Kovacuk happened to be sitting on the toilet at the time. Her husband burst through the door and told Mr Kovacuk to have sex with his wife because she was a prostitute.

The guests all left and so did the victim who spent the night at a friend’s house. Mr Pullicino said the argument that led to the woman’s death happened the following night when the victim turned up at the flat and told her husband that enough was enough and she was there to collect her clothes and leave for good.

He told her she had two choices: either go inside the flat or leave with nothing. All of a sudden a heated argument erupted and she ran up the stairs in the common area of the flat. As she ran he grabbed her and pulled her jeans down, making her escape very difficult. She leaned against what she thought was a wall but found nothing because the shaft for the lift was still under construction. She fell down the shaft, the officer said.

In his statement to the police, which was read out in court, the accused said his wife hid the fact that she was sleeping with someone else and played games with him when he asked her where she had been. She lied to him and came up with excuses to hide the fact that she had been with another man, he said.

When she fell down the shaft, he said he looked down but could see nothing.

He picked up her handbag, which she had dropped when they ran up the stairs, and walked into the flat where he smoked a cigarette and drank wine.

The accused told the police he heard her crying out in pain but did nothing until the following morning when he woke his flatmate, Mr Kovacuk, up and told him he heard her moaning in the common area of the flat. Mr Kovbacuk went to check and found the woman dead at the bottom of the shaft.

Mr Nykytiuk said he was sorry for what he had done adding that had he acted earlier the outcome would have been very different.

At the end of the sitting, legal aid lawyer Malcolm Mifsud raised a legal point and said that during the testimony by the police inspector it emerged that he had told the accused what type of jail term he could be given if he cooperated with the police. That ultimately led to his confession, Dr Mifsud said. This, he said, was a breach of human rights and he asked Mr Justice Michael Mallia to declare the proceedings null.

Dr Sant said no such promises were made and asked the judge to inform the jurors that the defence had declared it was not contesting his confession. Mr Justice Mallia ruled that he would explain the law to the jurors and the recording of what the officer said would be made available to them who would then decide whether there was any breach. The jurors would not be told what the defence lawyer had said with regard to a confession.

The case continues this morning when the jurors will visit the flat and the area where the victim died.