A convicted murderer, who landed a seven-year jail term in a separate case after slashing a prison inmate’s eye with a razor, will have his case sent back to the Magistrates’ Court over an error in sentencing pointed out on appeal.

David Norbert Schembri is already serving a life sentence after stabbing his partner 49 times in a murder in 2004.

He got into fresh trouble in 2010 when he attacked and injured fellow prisoner Noel Borg.

The incident had taken place at the Corradino Correctional Facility while the accused was receiving methadone treatment.

Schembri had attacked Borg with a razor blade taped to a cigarette lighter, inflicting a grievous injury that resulted in Borg's partial blindness.

A magistrate had sentenced Schembri to a 7-year jail term despite his claims of having acted in self-defence.   

In his appeal application, Schembri’s lawyers argued that the Magistrates’ Court had wrongly applied an article of law that increased punishment when the offence was committed by a person serving a jail term.

That article, section 33A of the Criminal Code, had not featured in the note of remittal sent by the Attorney General and yet the first court had taken it into consideration when meting out punishment.

The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera, observed that the Court of Magistrates was bound to decide “exclusively upon the crimes contemplated in the note of remittal and nothing else.”

Anything beyond the offences indicated by the attorney general would clearly fall beyond the powers of the court, the judge said. It therefore partially upheld the appeal, annulling the judgment and sending the case back to the Magistrates’ Court to rectify the error accordingly.