The Libyan man insisted that the presiding judge, instead of summing up the evidence as usual, told the jurors his personal opinion of what could have happened inside the salon.

This gave the jurors a bad impression and upon hearing the judge’s opinion, could have been prejudiced against him.

The appeals court, which was presided over by chief justice Vincent de Gaetano, said that upon the evaluation of the case and what happened during the trial by jury, there was nothing to prove that a miscarriage of justice had take place.

Among other things, the appeals court said El Baden had admitted to killing Mr Rizzo after stabbing him several times. He admitted to this crime both in his statement as well as during his testimony at his trail by jury.

Moreover, the appeals court noted, the circumstances that led to the murder were different in each of El Baden’s versions.

In his first version, he had told police that he went there to rob Mr Rizzo while during the jury he denied that this was why he had gone to the salon, adding that he had killed him in self-defence.

The appeals court said the jurors could have easily reached their own conclusion on the merits of the case as much as they could have reached their own conclusion on the allegation that El Baden was reacting to sexual advances.

While stating that it had no doubt the jurors had the opportunity to study the facts of the case, including the theory of self-defence, the appeals court said the evidence presented in court was enough to scrap this theory completely.

On the punishment handed down to El Baden, the appeals court remarked that this was within the parameters laid down by the law.

Moreover, the jail term was decided upon after taking into consideration a number of issues, including the defendant’s age when he committed the crime.

On the basis of all these reasons, the appeals court decided to confirm the judgement handed down by the criminal court.