A panel of jurors decided yesterday that a man was not in a state of insanity while he was in the act of murdering his wife nearly two years ago. The jurors’ decision went against the professional opinion of a team of court-appointed psychiatrists who said that the man was in a state of insanity while he was committing the crime.

The jurors returned with their verdict just 45 minutes after retiring to consider whether Anthony Schembri, 61, from Sliema, was in a state of insanity when he stabbed his wife Doris in her bed at St Luke’s Hospital on 29 September 2005.

Yesterday’s trial, known as a trial by jury to determine a plea of insanity, was held because Mr Schembri is pleading insanity during the criminal proceedings being brought against him.

The jurors were not asked to decide whether Mr Schembri was guilty or not of killing his wife but rather whether or not he was in the right mental state to know what he was doing that afternoon.

Earlier yesterday, psychiatrists David Cassar, Anton Grech and Ethel Felice, who were appointed as court experts to assess Mr Schembri’s mental condition, said that he was in a state of insanity while he was committing the crime.

They had, they said, examined the case and studied Mr Schembri’s medical history. They said he suffers from what is technically known as “chronic paranoid schizophrenia” and had been suffering from this condition for a number of months.

The psychiatrists explained that people with such a mental condition usually suffer from a persecution complex, and think that people are constantly talking about them. They said that sufferers of this condition also had delusional perceptions.

Mr Schembri, they said, had been receiving treatment for several years and about a month before the murder, he began getting hallucinations and started to believe that his wife, from whom he had been separated since 1991, was being unfaithful. They said that a few days prior to the incident, Mr Schembri had been agitated and was also suicidal.

The psychiatrists said that, following their evaluation, they concluded that at the time of the commission of the crime, Mr Schembri was in a state of insanity, as a result of which he did not know what he was doing.

In his statement Mr Schembri, who graduated as a legal procurator, told the police that he married his wife Doris in 1975 and that they had split up in 1991 but remained in contact. He said that he and his wife had never agreed and that she used to hurt his feelings by constantly referring to the fact that he was physically impaired. He said that in 1991, he had stabbed his wife with a knife.

Mr Schembri told the police that he knew that his wife was in St Luke’s Hospital because she had told him, and he said that he used to visit her every day. He explained that earlier that day – the day of the murder – he went to St Luke’s Hospital to visit her as usual.

While he was at her side, he told her that, although he visited her often, she was still hurting him with comments about his physical problem and said that he had remained faithful to her since they had separated. He told the police that his wife had replied that no one wanted him because he was physically impaired, and that was when he got hold of the knife he had in his pocket – which he had bought three days earlier – and stabbed her repeatedly in her stomach and neck and did not stop until she was unconscious.

He told the police that he had removed his bloodstained jacket, left the hospital and proceeded to Hamrun police station to report the incident.

When the police asked him why he had taken the knife with him, Mr Schembri replied that he took it with him because he could not take her comments about his physical problem any more and he wanted to teach her a lesson.

When he was asked if he had anything to say after he was informed that his wife had died, he replied: “I am sorry she died. I only wanted to hurt her and teach her a lesson.”

The psychiatrists said that it is not always easy to notice that someone is mentally ill. They said Mr Schembri suffered from delusional perceptions and had told them that on the day of the murder, he had seen a man in black who was wearing a cross around his neck. He said that this was a sign that his wife had to die. He also told them that earlier that day he had heard a voice saying that he did not need his wife any longer.

They concluded that at the time of the commission of the crime Mr Schembri did not know what he was doing because of his mental condition. He knew he was stabbing his wife with a knife but his reason for doing so was affected by his mental state.

During their submissions, Senior Counsel to the Republic Anthony Barbara said that Mr Schembri knew what he was doing and had also taken the murder weapon with him to hospital. This was a case of premeditated murder, he said.

On the other hand, defence counsels Anglu Farrugia and Edward Gatt insisted that their client was in a state of insanity at the time of the commission of the crime and that the jurors should declare this in their verdict.

This morning, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, who is presiding over the case, is expected to hand down his judgement following the jurors’ verdict.

Senior Counsel to the Republic Anthony Barbara is prosecuting and Dr Anglu Farrugia and Dr Edward Gatt are representing the accused.