Chantelle Chetcuti, the young mother-of-two murdered in a frenzied knife
attack was a “great mother” and a “strong woman” who refused to stay in an unhealthy relationship, her family said.
Chantelle died in hospital late on Monday, a day after she was stabbed at least
five times in the head and neck in a killing that has shocked the country.
Her former partner and father of her children, Justin Borg, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 34-year-old outside a club in Żabbar on Sunday night.
All I can tell you is that my niece was a happy, down to earth person,” her uncle, Ray Sacco, told Times of Malta.
“She was always smiling and laughing. She was a great mother to her two angels, a strong woman who refused to stay in a relationship in which her partner cheated on her more than once. And, yet, he kept stalking her,” he added.
He said the couple’s relationship had recently ended.
She was always smiling and laughing. She was a great mother to her two angels...
Mr Borg, a fruit and vegetable hawker, turned himself on Sunday evening when he went to the police headquarters, in Floriana, still wearing blood-stained clothes and allegedly carrying drugs in his pockets.
The 33-year-old appeared in court on Tuesday, charged with murder and the unlawful possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of cocaine and breach of the peace.
Mr Sacco echoed a sentiment shared by many on social media – that the
murder should not be described as a “crime of passion”.
According to the law, committing a crime while under sudden passion is deemed to be a mitigating factor on conviction.
“The cruelest thing in life is for a parent to bury her or his child. And, yet, some
idiots still come up with excuses for what happened! Passion crime? You say that
because it was not your child,” he wrote on Facebook.
Women’s Rights Foundation chairperson Andrea Dibben stressed that this was no “crime of passion” but a “cold-blooded murder fuelled by a misplaced sense of entitlement”.
It is this sense of entitlement of men over women that campaigners say often lies at the root of violence against women and femicide, the gender motivated violence against women, which is often committed by an intimate partner.
In an impassioned interview with Times Talk last year, Marceline Naudi, head of the Department of Gender Studies at the University of Malta, had listed the problems which sow the seeds of domestic violence and, increasingly, femicide.
“Women are perceived as less important, not as leaders but followers, as having to be submissive to the man,” Dr Naudi had said.
“Women are there to serve the needs of the family and the man. We ‘allow her’ to go out and get paid. At the end of the day, in the vast majority of cases, women still bear the responsibility of the family and household…
“This is the result of a patriarchal society. It’s about education... but it’s also about us stopping and opening our eyes to what’s going on,” she insisted.