Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/592425
2 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2015 News Woman who instigated perjury 'would bring strange men home' MATTHEW AGIUS TROUBLED young Leanne Camilleri has insisted that her mother exercised an powerful hold over her, a hold which had led the girl to falsely testify that her father had sexually assaulted her. Camilleri's father, Emanuel, had been jailed in 2012 after he was found guilty of defiling his daughter, only to be exonerated by the constitutional court after the daughter recanted her tes- timony. Her mother, Lisa May Camilleri, is charged with insti- gating the daughter's perjury. Earlier today, Magistrate Ian Farrugia faced the unenviable task of trying to identify the pre- cise nature of this hold, amidst angry exchanges between the lawyers on both sides. From the dock, the 21-year-old – by turns trembling and fierce, always verbose - answered ques- tions about the alleged abuse, her sexuality and the different ver- sions of her account put to her, as she was cross-examined by her mother's lawyer. To vociferous objections by the prosecution and a lawyer who is assisting the witness, defence lawyer Martin Fenech asked the girl whether she was currently in a relationship with a woman, also asking whether her father would ever stand on the balcony in the nude. Both questions were strenuously objected to by lawyer Maxilene Pace, who is assisting the girl as she testifies and law- yer Tonio Azzopardi, who is ap- pearing parte civile for the girl's father. The verbal exchange between lawyers Fenech and Pace esca- lated to the point where Fenech asked the court to eject Pace from the courtroom, saying she had no legal standing in the pro- ceedings. Magistrate Ian Farrugia dis- missed the objections, saying he shared the lawyer's distaste for his line of questioning, warn- ing Fenech that the relevance of these questions "had better be- come apparent." The witness replied that she had been in a relationship with her current partner for five years. Asked whether she had any boy- friends in the past, she replied that she had had two. Camilleri insisted that her mother would regularly throw her out of the house because she did not want her to come clean about the false testimony. The girl would be very unhappy about telling lies, she said. "Be- fore going into the court I would tell her that I was uncomfort- able... but she said now that we have got so far, we will get want we wanted. I don't remember...I was so brainwashed, being told the same thing repeatedly... " She told the court that she is now living with a family and was very happy. The family "is teach- ing me what family means," said the witness. Fenech asked her why, if she had been so happy, had she persisted in lying before the constitutional court, in spite of not being under her mother's yoke. "You were kicked out of home, you were not speaking to your mother, you were telling people that you had lied under oath, and then before the judge you lied again," stated Fenech. The witness replied that she would be under continuous pressure from her mother. The magistrate probed the witness on the exact nature of this pres- sure, asking her whether she would ever meet her mother. She would not. The only contact was over the phone, she said but as sitting dates approached, the mother would call her up and tell her to stick to the story, insisted Camilleri. Fenech asked why, when she had opened up about the false testimony to a hairdresser as well as to the police and yet, in spite of this, she had then lied again be- fore the constitutional court. The girl replied that her mother would threaten her before the sittings, but Fenech pointed out that the mother did not know about the constitutional case. The girl replied that she felt "possessed" by the mother. "The fact that she told me 'you'll see what I'll do to you' created a per- sistent fear that affected me." He asked whether the mother had ever tried to attack her, "many times," she replied but had not made a police report. The girl said that her mother would "bring strange men home to provide for food." Fenech asked whether she was aware that her father would pay maintenance, but she said that these things were not hers to know. The case continues. Lawyer To- nio Azzopardi is appearing parte civile for Camilleri's father. Murder trial: Daughter tells of father's brutal discipline, casual violence MAT THEW AGIUS A jury has heard the eldest child of Nizar El Gadi give a disturb- ing account of parental brutal- ity. The jury trying El Gadi, ac- cused of the murder of his ex- wife, law yer Margaret Mifsud, was yesterday shown a video recording of the victim's eldest daughter being questioned by parte civile law yer Arthur Az- zopardi during the compilation of evidence, via video confer- ence. The girl was scared of her fa- ther, she said during the 2014 video, because her father would always play rough with them. Several times during the inter- view, the girl referred to what she called the "mattress game." "We would lie down our bod- ies on the mattress and he would climb on top of us and hit our heads on the bed," said the 9-year-old witness. She explained that she would be placed on her side, when her father would bang her head on the bed. "This would hurt a lot," said the girl, adding that it would happen often. The girl said that she was scared of her dad because of his temper. "He would get very angry and blaspheme in Arabic and we would play that game of 'squeeze me against the mattress.'" The children were forbidden from watching Disney cartoons such as Cinderella or Snow White, said the girl, because the accused did not want them to see depictions of people kissing. Neither did he want her to re- ceive her first Holy Communion, or go to church, said the child. She was asked about father try- ing to stop them going to mass. "He would tell us 'oh come on, let's stay here and play, it's more fun.' I didn't like it because he was trying to turn me against my religion." "During Lent, we don't usually eat meat but one time daddy put a piece of meat from the previ- ous week on a fork and forced it in my mouth. It reached my throat and it hurt me." One Monday, they were com- ing back from school with their mother when they encountered the accused who managed to get inside the car. "Margaret take me back," she said the accused had begged, on his knees. "I was a Muslim, I didn't know what i was doing... I will become a Catholic so we can be together" "Those were all lies," added the child. Asked what sort of punish- ments the girl 's father would give her and her sister, she re- plied that "he would shout a lot, hit us on our backs, play that game with our heads, he would try to make us miss mass and MUSEUM." "He would lift my top and hit my back with all his strength with the palm of his hand. I would feel like i was about to fall over." "He would spit a lot. Not just at me, but my sister and mother. Mostly at my mother." Asked to clarif y, she said her father would hock up phlegm and spit it at them, but this was not a regu- lar occurrence. "We would be playing on the computers and he would come in and start spitting at us." it would hit them. She would not know why he spat at her mother. As the girl mentioned the spit- ting incident, the accused put his head in his hands and rubbed his face nervously, clenching and unclenching his fist. On one occasion she recalled being in her bedroom. Her moth- er was writing on the laptop and the witness and her sister were playing on the bed. "Dad came in and slammed his hand on the door, leaving a mark. His hand almost went through. He started shouting in Arabic and ordered us out. He closed the door. "I heard mum shouting 'Ni- zar! Nizar!' and so my sister and I picked up our pillows to nanna's room. We tried open- ing the door, kicking it and hit- ting it with our elbows. At one point, daddy opened the door and left." Asked about the pillows, the child explained that they were going to hit their father with the pillows. Their mother looked scared and frightened, said the child. "She didn't want to talk about it." Nizar El Gadi is accused of the murder of his ex-wife, lawyer Margaret Mifsud Emanuel Camilleri was freed after being jailed for two years over charges of defiling his daughter