Man involved in fistfight handed suspended sentence

A fistfight that happened four years ago resulted in a suspended sentence for a Rabat man yesterday.

48-year-old Saviour Sammut was sentenced to three months imprisonment suspended for one year after Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera found him guilty of causing grievous injuries to his neighbour, Joseph Psaila in a fight in 2010.

The two had been involved in a dispute over the removal of a pipe, which, for 40 years, had carried water from the roof of one man’s property to another. 

Soon after the pipe was rerouted, Psaila found that it had been split open.

Some time later, while Psaila was waiting for children to board his schoolbus, Sammut proceeded to launch a tirade of offensive language at Psaila from across the road.

Some time later, Psaila had gone to his field and noticed the broken pipe leaking water. Meeting Sammut as he went to close the water main, the defendant had set upon Psaila, punching him from behind and scratching his face, all the while shouting “insults about his deceased parent’s corpses”.

His injuries were documented by a doctor, who attested to them in court.

Psaila, an ex-police man with 27 years of service under his belt, was unperturbed by the insults, but had “felt that he had to take court action, after suffering physical violence”.

Sammut claimed that he had acted in self-defence and that he had been provoked.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera, in a highly detailed sentence quoting a multitude of case law, as well as legal scholars Carrara, Antolisei and Canofari, explained the accepted principles of legitimate self-defence and said that the court did not feel this was the case, given the evident state of mind of the accused. 

The Magistrate also dismissed the defence argument of provocation, saying that it clearly appears that it was the accused who had started the fight, being in a state of rage due to the water pipe issue.

Inspector Ramon Mercieca prosecuted.