A man suspected of stabbing a woman with a screwdriver before dousing her with acid is not fit to stand trial and cannot be charged with the attempted murder yet, the Times of Malta has learnt.

Sources said the man, Noel Calleja, 38, from Santa Venera, was not even interrogated by the police who immediately took him for psychiatric examinations when they saw signs that he was emotionally unstable.

Following the examinations by psychiatric experts, he was sent to Mount Carmel Hospital. His arrest was suspended.

The sources said that although he was not under arrest, he was still being monitored and the police are to be informed when he is declared fit to leave the psychiatric hospital.

Police are to be informed when suspect is declared fit

Mr Calleja was arrested on Wednesday as soon as police arrived on site in Trejqet Isouard, Marsa, when they were responding to an incident involving him and the victim, Jacqueline Dipasquale, a 50-year-old separated mother of two from Swieqi.

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The woman was rushed to hospital where she was treated for serious injuries. Sources said Ms Dipasquale is recovering well from the stab wounds and the burns caused by acid, particularly over her face.

Bad blood

Mr Calleja was on bail pending proceedings in which he was charged with the attempted murder of the same woman in 2012.

On that occasion, the victim, at the time a part-time nurse working for the MMDNA, was repeatedly hit in her car in a field at Ta’ Farsina, Qormi.

After the 2012 stabbing, Mr Calleja spent 14 hours on the run and five hours threatening to jump from a flagpole on a roof in a private residence not far from where the stabbing had occurred.

In 2015, Ms Dipasquale was jailed for 18 months after she was found guilty of smuggling drugs into jail in 2009 when she worked as a prison nurse.