An emergency medicine specialist has described the extent of the wounds inflicted on a 12-year-old girl when she was stabbed no less than 16 times.

Magistrate Marseanne Farrugia presided over an intense first sitting in the compilation of evidence against Nazzareno Dalli.

43-year-old Dalli, who is also known as Ronald, is accused of the attempted murder of his ex-partner's two teenage daughters, aged 12 and 15, as well as grievous bodily harm, illegal arrest and attacking girls with a knife, amongst other charges, which include cocaine possession.

The defendant, with the word "REVENGE" prominently tattooed on the nape of his neck, was flanked by prison guards as he sat in the dock.

Dalli was arrested on March 9, after emergency services received a call for assistance at a residence in Triq San Tumas, Marsa.

Amongst the witnesses who testified on Friday was emergency medicine specialist Dr. Josef Mifsud, who was responsible for treating the 12-year-old from the moment she entered the emergency department until her admission to theatre.

The patient was admitted in a confused state. Her Glasgow Coma Score was nine, said the doctor, explaining that she was on the brink of losing her airway. "She was in class 4 shock, the most serious class, having lost 30% to 40% of her blood."

"On the 12-year-old girl, I documented 16 stab wounds and their location. A CT scan was carried out. She was in a critical condition when she was admitted. We administered two bags of blood.  She was bleeding internally and was suffering from a bilateral pneumothorax, meaning both of her lungs had collapsed."

The girl had to be intubated to keep her breathing, he said.

The child's heart had been penetrated, her spleen was torn, her liver was torn and puncture wounds to her left kidney and pancreas. She had also suffered a displaced fracture of one of her ribs, said the doctor.

Asked to explain in simpler terms, the doctor said "both her lungs were damaged, together with her heart, her spleen and her gallbladder. She was almost unconscious, mumbling."

Lawyer Mario Mifsud, who is assisting the defendant, together with lawyers Nicholas Mifsud, Arthur Azzopardi, Jacob Magri and Franco Debono, reserved the right to cross-examine the witness, but thanked him and the rest of the emergency department staff for saving the girl's life.

Accused consumed alcohol and drugs before stabbing young girls

From the witness stand, police Inspector Ian Vella told the court that Dalli had released an audio-visual statement in the presence of his lawyer, after his arrest. In that statement, he said, Dalli had confirmed that on the night before the incident, he had been working the door as a security guard at the Osiris bar in Marsaskala.

After it closed at around 4am, he had been inside with his sister and two unidentified Serbian nationals, drinking and doing drugs, the court heads. Afterwards they had gone to the Red Star bar in Żejtun, where he said, they had continued their bender, consuming more drugs.

Asked to specify what drugs had been taken, the inspector told the court that Dalli had told him that he had initially consumed cocaine. A Serbian man had then sold him some other substance, which the man had poured into his drink and that he could not remember what happened after he had consumed it.

Photos uploaded to social media confirmed Dalli's presence at both Red Star and Osiris that night, said the inspector. "He was wearing the same clothes that he was arrested in, except the black shirt." The photo showed the 30cm knife that was later found at the scene, tucked into his belt, added the inspector.

This photo of Dalli was captioned "Revenge," said the inspector.

Police describe scene of the crime

The two police officers who were first to arrive at the location, described the disturbing scene they found.

A sergeant told the court that he had met the 14-year-old boy as he ran towards them, barefoot, in the street outside the house. The boy told the police that Dalli had stabbed his family. After checking the boy for injuries, the officers entered the house, noting the knife behind the front door, wrapped up in a cloth, with blood still dripping from its blade, the court heard.

"I heard cries of pain while going up the stairs... I found a small girl crying and in pain on the floor. She was covered in blood. I called for an ambulance. I lifted her shirt up over her ribs and noticed many wounds, on her belly, arms and back. I started trying to stop the bleeding from all the wounds but it was impossible. Her breathing was becoming increasingly laboured and she was almost unconscious."

At that point another officer had told him that a second wounded girl was on the washroom roof. After handing over the first casualty to paramedics, he went up to the roof and found the other girl in a better state than her sister and was being cared for by other officers.

The female constable who had accompanied the previous witness testified next, her voice quavering at times. Noting that the girl was already being seen to by her colleague, and being told that there was a second casualty on the roof, she went up the blood-stained stairs to investigate.

On the roof, she found the older girl, with a deep wound to her hand. "Whilst giving her first aid, I noticed that she had several deep wounds, the bone was visible through one of them."

Victims' mother testifies

The girl's mother also gave tearful evidence during Friday's sitting, describing her three-year abusive relationship with the defendant and her recollections of the incident.

"That day, I woke up in the morning like usual... I went shopping, it was around 11am. [The kids] were on the bed. The boy on the PlayStation and one of the girls was asleep. When I returned, I found the boy... he said 'Zaren came here. I went to try and go inside but a police officer stopped me. 'I told him my children were inside. My son was in a state of massive shock."

Her elder daughter had been found on the washroom roof, "I think she was so afraid that she went up there to jump off," she said.

"When he told me the girl lost a lot of blood and might not survive, I panicked and started hitting myself in the face. They brought out my daughter on a sheet, in a coma, almost dead. They covered her in a sheet, head and all. I thought 'that's it, she's gone.'"

She was only able to see her daughter, 24 hours after her surgery. "My daughter is covered with cuts. She's all sewn up on the inside... everyone at the hospital said it was a miracle that she survived. I can hardly bear to look at her."

Asked about her relationship with the defendant, she said that she had repeatedly tried to end it.

She had called it quits on 29 December 2023, she said, but Dalli continued to harass her. "He never accepted it. He would call, repeatedly. I blocked his number but he would call me from other people's phones. I ended up changing my number. Then he would come to my door, knocking and shouting. I would go clean a client's house and would find him there too."

The last time she had seen him before the stabbing, he had been banging on her front door in the middle of the night, shouting and insulting her. "I had told him many times to end it, because we don't agree with each other... every time he refused to accept it, he would threaten me."

At one point, she had spent a week at a domestic violence shelter in a bid to get out of the relationship. "I was exhausted."

"I would call the police and tell them to check if my front door had been forced open. It wasn't. He [Dalli] would be inside and would tell the officers that he was there with my permission."

Dalli never had a key to the house, the woman insisted, not even when they had been in a relationship together.