A man who survived a frenzied butcher’s knife attack at the hands of a man who was recently jailed for 42 years is worried he will have to relive the legal nightmare now that his attacker appealed the court judgment.

“It’s ridiculous… I was thinking that, finally, everything is closed and now we have to start from the beginning,” Emil Marinov said the day after he heard that his attacker appealed the jail term and asked for the case to be sent back to the first court.

On March 5, Eliott Paul Busuttil, 40, was sentenced to 42 years in prison after admitting to trying to kill Marinov when he attacked him with a butcher’s knife and to the murder of a taxi driver two years later.

Busuttil, from Attard, was on bail for the attempted murder of Marinov in August 2020 when he murdered 62-year-old taxi driver Mario Farrugia, who was found dead in the trunk of his car in Qormi valley in April 2022. Both men were repeatedly stabbed but only one survived.

Busuttil admitted to the charges after the attorney general and the defence underwent a sentence bargaining process and agreed on a 35-year jail term.

But the judge noted she was not legally bound by the sentence bargaining and jailed him for 42 years.

“It’s very good that the judge gave more years but I wish it to be life imprisonment without parole,” Marinov, 60, had said on the day of the judgment.

He spoke about how the attack changed his life forever and he still undergoes therapy.

On Monday, Busuttil appealed the judgment claiming among other things that the judge should have informed him that she would not adhere to the 35-year jail term agreed by the prosecution and the defence in exchange for a guilty plea. 

Busuttil noted that he ended up getting seven years more than he agreed during the sentence bargaining agreement and he should have been allowed to reconsider his plea.

Marinov said this was ridiculous. “He has a right to ‘play’ but the judge did not have to agree to 35 years. The man who killed the Turkish girl got 40 years in jail and he [Busuttil] got 42 for killing someone and trying to kill me,” he said referring to the sentence handed down to Jeremie Camilleri.

Camilleri admitted to murdering Turkish interior designer Pelin Kaya when he smashed into the 30-year-old with his BMW car as she walked home along Testaferrata Street, Gżira shortly after celebrating her birthday on January 18, 2023.

The attack

A Bulgarian national, Marinov moved to Malta some 22 years ago to be with his son who was then 12 and wanted to study English. The plan was to stay for a year but they ended up remaining in the country, where Marinov worked as a handyman and, later, a welder. Marinov, who likes to collect audio equipment, only came across Busuttil because he had placed an advert on Facebook marketplace to sell a pair of tower speakers.

Marinov reached out to him on August 13, 2022 and agreed on a price – €150. They agreed to meet, initially near Maypole, in Attard. When they met, Busuttil asked him to take him to Marsa because he needed some keys. When in Marsa, Busuttil asked for a €30 advance on the payment for the speakers and vanished down an alley. 

When he returned, they headed back to Attard and Marinov waited in the car. Busuttil returned, without speakers, and told him they had to drive towards Ta’ Qali. Busuttil had him drive down a deserted country lane leading to some fields near the national football stadium.

By this time, it was 10pm and the area was a dark ghost town. Busuttil leapt out of the car, leaving the passenger door open. As Marinov got out, he felt a big blow on the head. What followed was a vicious attack where Busuttil used a butcher’s knife to slash Marinov on the ears, face, lips, head and arms. Busuttil took off with the €120 that Marinov had stuffed in his trouser pocket and left him for dead.

Two years later, Busuttil carried out another “animalistic” and “barbaric” attack on Farrugia, fatally stabbing him 45 times.