A 31-year-old Syrian man was today charged with raping, assaulting and injuring his Maltese partner of eight years after they broke up.
The man pleaded not guilty to raping the woman, seriously injuring her, causing her and her family to fear him, creating a false Facebook profile to use against his former partner, misappropriation of her laptop and damaging her mobile phone.
He was also charged with setting fire to her car on June 11 last year and damaging a car parked close by, assaulting her and her father on August 23 with a spanner with which he damaged the father's car and making use of an identity card belonging to someone else.
Lawyer Kenneth Grima in requesting bail explained how his client had been married to a Maltese woman. They separated and he then entered a relationship with the alleged victim, with whom he had been for eight years.
The incident in question originated because the woman cheated on him.
The lawyer said it was difficult to understand how a person who lived with someone for eight years, as a common-law wife could claim rape. This was often used as a way of getting revenge on a partner, as it was difficult to prove. Some people got this revenge by claiming their partner abused their children, he added, as he insisted that his client was still presumed to be innocent and should not be in jail.
The prosecution, led by Police Inspectors Trevor Micallef and Melvyn Camilleri, said that relationship dynamics were not so simple. Furthermore there were several reported acts of violence over several years, of which there were photos, and the rape was part of this current incident.
The woman filed the report shortly after the incident and initially did not mention being raped. She later said she did not want to harm him.
Even if the rape was removed from the equation, there were still all the ingredients to deny bail in this case.
Inspector Camilleri said rape could take place within a relationship and if a woman did not want to have sex she should not be beaten.
The court denied bail at this stage and urged the prosecution to call witnesses to testify as soon as possible.