A woman was yesterday arrested and then released, after she admitted to committing perjury during the trial by jury of a man accused of killing her boyfriend.

Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, who presided over the trial, told the jurors that Carmen Portelli Bouvet’s testimony was invalid. He had warned her several times against giving false testimony under oath, and on Tuesday evening he placed her in solitary confinement in the court’s lock-up to reconsider her testimony. On that day, her testimony was stopped twice, once by the prosecution and once by the defence as she was not believed to be telling the truth.

In total, Ms Portelli Bouvet gave false testimony during two sittings. Mr Justice Caruana Demajo told her that she was the reason that the court “wasted” a day of the trial.

Carmen Portelli Bouvet was a prosecution witness in the trial by jury of Raymond Camilleri, 43, from Zurrieq, who is charged with killing Christopher Camilleri, 24, from Zejtun, and the illegal use of a weapon during the commission of a crime.

Ms Portelli Bouvet confirmed on Tuesday that she had heard about the ongoing trial on the news and that her feelings for the victim, who at the time was her boyfriend, had been rekindled.

Yesterday morning, she again took the witness stand, after Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo warned her that the night she spent in detention was just a taste of the consequences she would face if caught lying again. He stressed that the aim of the trial is to uncover the truth, as she had pledged to do when she took the oath

Ms Portelli Bouvet asked for the testimony she gave during the compilation of evidence to be read as her testimony during the trial. Defence counsel Giannella Caruana Curran opposed the demand, saying that the truth is never forgotten, while lies tend to contradict themselves.

Defence lawyer Emanuel Mallia held that the laws contemplate that testimonies must be delivered a viva voce, as previous depositions are used in order to benchmark that same testimony.

Assistant Attorney General Arthur Azzopardi said the woman’s previous deposition would serve to benchmark her testimony during the trial, and would thus only be used to guide her if the versions do not match.

Mr Justice Caruana Demajo ruled that Ms Portelli Bouvet should be asked questions a viva voce and each answer should then be double checked.

During her deposition, Ms Portelli Bouvet described her love-hate relationship with the accused which was peppered with fights, blows, and black eyes but also with hugs and forgiveness which led to them making up again. She said she wanted to end their relationship only after her boyfriend had started to show signs of jealousy. She said he had also started drinking to drown his sorrows.

Ms Portelli Bouvet said she loved Christopher Camilleri dearly; however, she could not stand his obsessive jealousy.

Dr Caruana Curran told her that her boyfriend was not the “good man” she was trying to depict, and confronted her with the fact that she often had black eyes and when she was seven months pregnant with his child, gave her a beating which resulted in her having to be hospitalised for two days and almost losing the baby. The witness said that on that occasion she did not report him for beating her because she had fallen down the stairs.

The lawyer suggested that Christopher Camilleri used to call her derogatory names, hinting that she was not faithful to him, to which the witness replied that they both used to insult each other, and she used to call him names as well.

Dr Caruana Curran insisted that on the night, Christopher Camilleri barged in on Ms Portelli Bouvet and her four children, who were all ready to go to sleep, and started shouting at her and accusing her of adultery and she was so afraid of him that she escaped from her apartment and stayed in the street clad only in a night dress, signalling to her neighbour to call the police.

The woman insisted that she walked out of the apartment because she wanted to end the argument, however, the lawyer, referring to previous testimony, told her that she walked away because she was afraid. The witness said she did not remember saying these things.

After the police convinced him to leave, said Ms Portelli Bouvet, she noticed her boyfriend had returned while she was speaking to her neighbour. She got back into her apartment and the man was calm as ever.

However, Dr Caruana Curran suggested that the man was not calm at all, in fact he was acting like a mad man and not only insulted the neighbour, but tried to break into her apartment.

As she and her boyfriend were arguing, Ms Portelli Bouvet said they heard a noise coming from outside. However, Dr Caruana Curran said the witness did not really hear a bang and that when the victim rushed to a window in her apartment’s common area and shouted about someone tampering with his car, she thought he was shouting at her.

Ms Portelli said Christopher Camilleri calmly went down the stairs and out onto the road, while she went inside to tend to her nine-month-old baby. Dr Caruana Curran confronted her with her own previous testimony in which she had claimed that the man was angry.

The woman said that she heard a bang and rushed to the same window and saw her boyfriend limping and holding his leg while Raymond Camilleri was holding a gun.

Ms Portelli Bouvet said the victim had just come out of her apartment, while the accused was coming from his house which was across the street.

She kept on insisting that there were five shots, four of which she saw, and added that she spoke to the accused, who told her that the victim was getting what he deserved.

She also testified that the accused fired twice towards the victim’s arm which was in a plaster cast. The witness denied rifling through her dead boyfriend’s pockets and taking away money and his wrist watch. However, the lawyer confronted her with a previous testimony in which she admitted going through his pockets and taking away his watch, the money and keys he had. She had also testified that she searched for any weapons he might have had.

Dr Caruana Curran accused the witness of taking away the man’s belongings and hiding some of them in her flat and the others in her neighbour’s apartment.

Ms Portelli Bouvet said that she took the gun from the accused; they struggled, while she punched him in the face, he pushed her away and shot once in the air, “a sort of a salute”, she said. She added the man’s five-year-old boy shouted “Daddy is playing cowboys” to his mother as he saw his father brandishing the gun.

Dr Caruana Curran asked her whether she was aware of the significance of a testimony under oath, during a murder trial by jury. Dr Caruana Curran said the witness had never referred to these episodes before, either when she gave a statement, or during the compilation of evidence.

The lawyer accused the witness of lying about several key facts that differed from her testimony and the one she gave during the compilation of evidence. At first she refuted that testimony, saying that she had given the same version in both proceedings. Dr Caruana Curran said that that testimony was recorded on tape and transcribed.

While Ms Portelli Bouvet stuck to her version, Dr Caruana Curran told her that there is only one truth, and it cannot be altered at will. She warned her that giving false evidence carries serious consequences, and Ms Portelli Bouvet insisted that she had no reason to lie. “You are living a science fiction fantasy,” Dr Caruana Curran told the woman, before she was arrested.

The day’s second testimony was the accused’s statement which he realeased to the inquiring magistrate and the police a few days after the incident

The accused had asked the victim nicely several times to leave him a parking space. As he tried to park, his clutch slipped and his car bumped into the victim’s parked car.

The victim, who was on the balcony, started shouting and came down and started hitting him and punching him in the face. He got into his garage and grabbed hold of his gun which he had stored in a room behind the garage. The victim, who had one arm in plaster, had told him that he would kill him and burn his car if he could use both hands. The accused said he was afraid of the man, and thought he might have had a knife, however, he never saw it.

The accused had testified that the victim was running away from him and he fired towards his legs. He shot him for the second time, after he thought he had missed.

Three years prior to the incident, the two worked with the same company, and after an incident the victim was fired because of the accused.

The prosecution informed the court that it had no more evidence to present.