Pasqualino Cefai 'provoked by magistrate', court hears

A court has been told how a magistrate’s decision to proceed with a hearing in the absence of a violent offender’s lawyer had caused him lose his temper and attack her.

Lawyer Edward Gatt was testifying this morning before Magistrate Audrey Demicoli in the compilation of evidence against his client, Pasqualino Cefai, who is charged with assaulting and threatening Magistrate (now judge) Miriam Hayman last October.

Three RIU units and district police officers had to intervene in Magistrate Miriam Hayman’s courtroom after Pasqualino Cefai, 39, of Zebbug, Gozo, lunged at the magistrate. A police officer had been injured in the ensuing altercation.

Gatt explained that, aside from Cefai’s hearing, he had three other cases scheduled to be heard by magistrate Hayman that day.

“When they were finished, I informed the magistrate that the Cefai case remained and that he was in the SRT lockup at the time. I said that I did not wish his case to be heard without me being present as he is of a nervous disposition and my presence would reassure him.”

The lawyer explained that he had been in a sitting before the court of appeal when Cefai’s case was called. Nobody had informed him that Cefai’s hearing had commenced, said Gatt. No court messengers had notified him in the courtroom and the prosecuting inspector had not called him – although he conceded that the inspector was under no obligation to do so.

“As the appeal hearing finished, I heard that a disturbance had occurred in Hall 7,” said the lawyer, adding that he was so angry that the hearing had taken place in his absence he had decided against going inside that courtroom himself as he would have ended up having a confrontation with the magistrate.

Cefai, who is serving a seven-year sentence for a violent assault in a Gozo courtroom, had appeared before Magistrate Hayman over a separate case involving the importation of drugs.

After the incident in the courtroom, Cefai was charged with 10 offences, including assaulting and threatening a magistrate, assaulting and threatening a public servant, violently resisting a public servant in the execution of his duties, causing slight injuries to a police officer, disobeying a lawful order made by a police officer, voluntarily causing damage to a court window, assaulting a magistrate and police officers, disturbing the public peace, using blasphemous language and being a recidivist.

The case was adjourned to 15 October.

Police inspector Darryl Borg is prosecuting. Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo are appearing on behalf of Cefai.