Two RIU policemen to be charged with beating up alleged drunk driver

Two  RIU policemen are to be charged with causing slight bodily harm and committing a crime they were duty bound to prevent, following allegations of police brutality in handling a drunk driving case.

The news that emerged in court during proceedings against Jean Paul Aquilina, who is accused of dangerous driving, disobeying police orders and assaulting police officers who had pulled him over for driving erratically. Aquilina, on the other hand, is claiming that he had been brutally attacked by the police.

Presiding magistrate Carol Peralta was decidedly unimpressed that the prosecution had omitted to inform him that two of the officers involved, Mark Tonna and David Camilleri, are now facing criminal charges in connection with the incident. After giving the prosecution a thorough dressing down for not informing the court of this, he ordered that the two cases be heard in tandem in his court.

Earlier in the sitting, a district police sergeant who had arrived at the scene shortly after the man’s arrest, told the court that the accused did not appear to be drunk.

Police sergeant David Cina was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Aquilina.  “He was not drunk, 100%. No smell of alcohol, Definitely.”

Cina was shown photographs of Aquilina’s injuries. He told the court that he had not seen many of the wounds and could not identify all the photographs. “Nobody brought it to my attention at the time of the incident.”

“We had been infored by the depot that there was a family argujent on the mgarr road and that RIU had already arrived. When I arrived there were 6-8 RIU and the resut were civilians who looked worried and angry at what had happened. “
“What made them angry”

“They were saying ‘look what they’ve done to him, they beat him up for nothing’ and Josianne Vassallo was crying unconsolably,”.

“The accused had what looked like a puncture wound under his eye,” said the police sergeant. “He was handcuffed at the time and burst out crying, saying ‘look what they did to me’. The witness said Aquilina’s behaviour looked genuine to him so he told him that the best thing to do was to go to the station and talk.

The girlfriend, Josianne Vassallo was repeatedly telling him that one policeman was violent. “The small one, the small one beat him up, he kept on hitting him,” he recalled her as saying. At no point were the Aquilina family aggressive, he said. “They were rather genteel, actually. I subconsciously noted that they were demanding justice. They could not accept it.”

The police sergeant decided to take him to the station in the district police car and not send him with the RIU. "His girlfriend wanted to ride with us, she was so concerned, but we couldn’t allow her to.”

Aquilina was given medical attention upon his arrival at the station, said the sergeant, "as he was not in a state to give a statement."

The case continues.