In a crime that shocked the country, Edlira Dobrushi stabbed her three daughters, aged three, ten and 13, to death at their family home in Lecco in March 2014.

On Tuesday a court acquitted her due to mental illness, judging her to be “incapable of intent or will” and sent her to a psychiatric facility for ten years, Ansa reported.

While the youngest children were killed while they slept, the eldest reportedly tried to defend herself from her mother.

Dobrushi then put the children's’ bodies on a bed and called a neighbour, telling them, “my daughters are no more” before trying to commit suicide, the news channel said.

Dobrushi, in her late thirties, was taken to hospital with wrist injuries where she admitted to killing her daughters. She later attempted suicide while in prison.

The family was in a dire economic situation and Dobrushi’s husband had recently left her because she suffered from depression.

The girls’ father, 45-year-old Bashkim Dobrushi, had moved out of the family home and was reportedly visiting his parents in his native Albania when the murders happened.

His brother, also living in Lecco, tracked him down to tell them his daughters had been killed. The father had reportedly started a new relationship and had gone home to tell his family he was separating from his wife.