A jury this afternoon heard a nine-year-old girl recount how her father tried to strangle her mother, and how she was herself dragged around a room after failing to promptly put a bottle of water in the fridge.

The girl gave her testimony in April 2012 following the murder of her mother Margaret Mifsud. Her father,  Nizar El Gadi, stands accused of having committed the crime. 

The articulate girl gave a harrowing account of her parents’ arguing and her father’s temper and bouts of violence, adding that she lived in fear that he would harm her or her mother or younger sister.

Jurors were also shown video footage of a second testimony, given later in January 24, 2014. Mr Justice Antonio Mizzi was adamant that Margaret Mifsud's two daughters should not be asked to testify again to prevent them from reliving the harrowing trauma.

Mr El Gadi stands accused of murdering his former wife, a lawyer, on April 19, 2012. The victim was found strangled in her car in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq after a night out with her colleagues.

In the first testimony, the girl recalled the day she first observed a red mark on her mother’s neck after she picked her and her sister up from ballet class. Dr Mifsud then headed towards a police station and the girl saw her file a report that Mr El Gadi had tried to strangle her – first with his bare hands and then with a string. 

Upon returning home in Birkirkara, the girls helped pack his possessions in garbage backs, which were then deposited at the police station.

The last time she physically saw Mr El Gadi before her mother was killed was when he had appeared outside the ballet academy the Tuesday prior to the murder.

“I was shocked when I saw him. I thought he had come to hurt us.

“He kept saying: ‘Margaret take me back, Margaret forgive me’.”

He had repeated those words the day before, when the girls saw their father after walking out of school.

“I saw him and shouted: ‘Daddy!’ and hugged him. But then he got into the car and went down on his knees and begged Mummy to forgive him because he was Muslim and didn’t know what to say.

“He said he wanted to live as a family and that he was ready to go to Church and convert into a Catholic. He said he would become a good man. Mummy said it was all lies. She knew him well – once, when we were young, he made off with us. I don’t know where.”

After the accused turned up in front of the ballet academy the next day, the victim agreed to head to Pizza Hut for a family meal.

The girl said she felt happy to see her parents having fun together. But she was disturbed upon seeing her father kiss her mother. Asked why, the girl said that the two were divorced and that she had never seen her father kiss her mother before, even when they lived in the same house.

She said that she “didn’t like it and didn’t expect it”, adding that her mother did not like it either.

Asked whether she had seen any kissing on television, she said her father did not allow her to watch such scenes, not even in Disney princess movies. She added that her father was very strict, and was against her receiving her Holy Communion when she was younger. He also did not like them going to Church, explaining that her parents did not agree on religious matters because her mother was Catholic while her father was Muslim.

At Pizza Hut, the father asked a waitress to take a picture of them together. Asked whether it was a happy picture, the girl replied in the affirmative because her younger sister always goofed around in pictures.

The girl said that she did not get along very well with her father because he “shouted a lot” and for nothing, cursed in Arabic and was often violent. She recalled being dragged around by her hair and slapped because he had asked her to put a bottle of water in the fridge and she had delayed because she was helping out her grandmother.

Although she never saw him slap her mother, she once saw him drive his fist into one of the bedroom doors, effectively cracking it.

In the second testimony, the girl also mentioned a “mattress game” which she intensely disliked. Her father played rough, and would often climb on her while she was on the bed and press her head hard into a mattress.

She added that she felt frightened of her father and feared he would hurt her and her family.

The case continues.