Updated 8.30pm
A man has been imprisoned for life after being found guilty of murdering his partner Maria Lourdes Agius.
The mother-of-seven was found strangled to death in her Paola bedroom in 2018.
Michael Emmanuel was also ordered to pay all court expenses amounting to €9,840.
As soon as punishment was delivered, Emmanuel knelt down in the dock, arms wide open as though in prayer. After a minute of silence, he knocked on the dock and threw a kiss in the direction of the cross on the wall.
Emmanuel faced seven accusations. He was found guilty of wilful homicide by eight votes against one; while unanimously not guilty of attempted grievous bodily harm of Agius and attempted grievous bodily harm of her mother.
He was found guilty of slight bodily harm of Agius with eight votes against one, and guilty of slight bodily harm of her mother by seven votes against two.
Agius' mother was over 60 years of age and lived in the same household as her daughter and Emmanuel.
Emmanuel was also found unanimously guilty of disobedience of lawful orders - something he had admitted to.
Lastly, he was found unanimously guilty as accomplice to forgery of public, commercial or private bank documents.
The Ivorian national faced a trial by jury after pleading not guilty to having suffocated Agius - a mother of seven - on September 15, 2018, inside the Paola flat which the couple shared with the victim’s mother.
Just two days before, the accused had punched his partner’s mother on the head when the umpteenth argument broke out between the couple.
On that occasion, he had pushed her daughter into a corner, hitting and kicking her, while telling her mother to move out.
On Monday, the accused listened to the verdict as he sat in the dock guarded by five prison security officials.
AG lawyer Anthony Vella meanwhile stressed that Emmanuel's was a "heinous crime. "
Emmanuel was found guilty of the cold-blooded and calculated murder of his partner and the mother of his children. he said, adding the victim had gone through a "slow and painful" and "cruel" death.
She was badly battered and bruised inside her home, right in her bed where she was supposed to feel safe. And moreover, the accused had shown no remorse right till the end of the trial, he added.
A message was to be sent out that such crimes of domestic violence are to be punished severely, went on the lawyer, insisting on life imprisonment together with solitary confinement, making reference to the case of Bojan Cmelik who was found guilty of murdering Hugo Chetcuti.
Simon Micallef Stafrace rebutted that an eight-to-one verdict "may" be tantamount to a unanimous verdict, however, it was not.
The court had discretion on whether to impose life imprisonment together with solitary confinement, he added.
In Cmelik's case, the facts were completely different.
Moreover, in spite of the outcome of the insanity trial, the psychiatric reports about the accused "are what they are" and those were to be taken into account when meting out punishment, especially with respect to solitary confinement, Micallef Stafrace said.
Mr Justice Aaron Bugeja presided over the trial.
AG lawyers Anthony Vella and Maria Francesca Spiteri prosecuted.
Lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace was legal aid counsel.
Lawyers Lara Dimitrijevic and Stephanie Caruana represented the victim's family.
More to follow.