Bona murder | Witness claims Galea 'ridiculed' Borg by touching his choker

Judge Antonio Mizzi has rejected a request by the prosecution for the jury trying Allan Galea – accused of the 2010 murder of Anthony “Twanny l-Bona” Borg – be dissolved.

The request was made after the jurors had left the courtroom for a mid-morning coffee break. It came at the tail-end of a hammering cross-examination of prosecution witness Clifton Cassar by defence lawyer Giannella De Marco.

Clifton Cassar sheds light on choker incident
Clifton Cassar, a close friend and the uncle of Borg’s girlfriend uncle, was one of two witnesses who testified today. He had previously been described by CID inspector Joseph Mercieca as “the most coherent witness, if not the most credible.”

But the witness initially seemed confused as to what incident he was being asked about. He could not remember exactly how many people had been at the PN club at the time, but with some gentle nudging by the judge, recalled that other people had been at the club and had left before the incident.

 “I don’t remember exactly, six years have passed hux.”

“What were you drinking?” asked the judge.

“Mhux birra?” [“beer”], replied the witness. The witness said that he would go to the club every Sunday.

“Twanny was phoning someone, he was sitting down at the time.” The witness was unable to identify who the victim was talking to, however, because of the music being played inside.

Three people had been outside the club, including himself, he said.

“Twanny was outside on the phone with someone, he looked a bit angry. Frans [Borg’s brother] went out and saw the accused in a white t-shirt up the road and said ‘look there’s Allan with a knife.’ He started shouting ‘pufta’!”

Allan was waving the knife, said the witness, demonstrating the motion.

“And what did Twanny do?” asked prosecuting lawyer Kristina Debattista. 

“He fired a shot in the air, walked forward two paces, fired another shot, then he threw the revolver away,” Cassar said. Galea was some distance away, up the road. “He fired into the air, I saw his hand pointing upwards,” he added, raising his hand to explain he had seen.

The handgun landed near the church parvis, he said.

Cassar said Borg had sprinted towards Galea, but had tripped up in the pavement. “He took two steps back and then Allan jumped on him and stabbed him. He didn’t even give him a chance.” Answering a question by the judge, he said the victim was on his feet as he suffered the first stab wound, however.

“I told him ‘what have you done?’ and he said ‘I don’t give a fuck’ [x’għala żobbi]”. The witness said he had then taken the knife out of the hands of the accused and placed it next to Frans Borg, ostensibly to avoid another stabbing.

Frans had told him “Is that right? You killed my brother?” before beating the accused with his fists. The accused had escaped and darted up the road.

He could not remember seeing the gun as Borg lay on the ground.

The lawyer asked whether he remembered any previous incidents between the two men. He did. “Three weeks before we went to eat out with Twanny and later for a drink at Xu.” Borg had told him not to go in the bar because the accused was drunk, but he had gone anyway.

He shed an interesting bit of light on the choker-tugging incident. Borg was fastidiously clean, the witness said. By tugging his choker, the accused had “ridiculed him. He didn’t like people touching his things and clothes. Lord forbid you touch his car's upholstery.”

“Allan came up to us and put his arm around my girlfriend whilst speaking to me...stinking of alcohol. He’s a bodybuilder, and he started putting his fist against the baby’s chin.”

The accused’s girlfriend had told him to stop bothering people, said the witness.

“I assumed she was referring to us. It was Sunday afternoon and there weren’t many people there.” Borg had never mentioned Galea before, said the witness and he could not recall any previous issues between the two men.

Defence tears into ‘parrot-like’ witnesses

But this now familiar version of events was taken apart by defence lawyer Giannella De Marco.

De Marco asked about the compilation CD played at the victim’s funeral. “Yes I remember it. His uncle is a DJ.” The court was told the CD had been titled “A tribute CD to Twanny Borg, known as Bona Power.”

Borg had also owned a parrot called “il-Power,” the court heard.

The witness, who had initially seemed eager to answer questions, suddenly became sullen and evasive, prompting the judge to ask whether it would be possible that people used to refer to the deceased as il-power. It was possible, the witness eventually conceded.

He had not seen the choker pulling incident, he said, but had been told of it by Paul Borg, known as ix-Xu, who ran the bar at the PN club around a week after it happened.

De Marco asked about Borg’s several cars. Borg owned a Mitsubishi Pajero, said Cassar. After some prodding, he added that Borg had also owned a pickup truck and a Mercedes.

“Did you know where he got his money from?” asked the lawyer.

“I don’t know, it’s his business,” replied Cassar. “I wasn’t with him all the time.” He denied that people were scared of Borg.

“He would go to a bar and buy everyone drinks.”

Cassar said he was unaware of Bona ever beating anyone and like the witnesses who testified yesterday, became increasingly reluctant to answer De Marco’s questions, as his cross-examination dragged on.

“Did Twanny start asking for something in the club?” asked the lawyer in order to confirm reports that he had been asking for the accused’s telephone number. “I don’t know, I was sitting down hux.”

The questions moved on to the choker-touching incident. “It’s one thing touching it, but pulling on it is another,” said the witness.

“Oh dear, how terrible! He pulled on his choker!” said De Marco in mock horror.

“Did he start asking around for Allan’s number?” asked the defence. “I didn’t hear him. I was on the other side of the table,” replied Cassar. “Why? Was he softly spoken?” smiled De Marco.

The witness said he wasn’t, but hearing him was made difficult because there had been music playing.

Last week, Brother Aaron Zahra, a cleric who had prayed over the dying man, had testified to hearing shouting emanating from the PN club. She asked Cassar whether he had heard the shouting.

“Twanny left in a rage and he was calling someone. I didn’t hear what he was saying though,” the witness said.

She pointed out that the three men had been seated next to each other at table and the three women at the other side. “You were brought here to say the truth and not to repeat things like a parrot, like Twanny’s parrot. Stop being a parrot and tell us what was said at the bar.”

To howls of protest from the prosecution bench, as the witness began telling the jury his version, De Marco made a show of mockingly prompting the witness, phrase by phrase, with the same version which the court had heard from the other witnesses.

She then told the witness that this version had been heard for the first time in March when they testified in court.  She tore into what she alleged was a scripted version of events, pointing out that witness would be unable to answer when asked for pertinent details which were not part of the script. Neither had they mentioned the knife-waving and name-calling in their statements to the police.

“What did Twanny say?” asked De Marco. The witness seemed wrong-footed and said nothing. “Mute,” noted the lawyer, with grim satisfaction.

“Did he ever use cocaine?” she asked.

“How should I know, I wasn’t with him all the time,” the witness protested, but said nothing when she pointed out that he was the victim’s son’s godfather and the two had been close friends.

The judge asked what the men had been talking about during the two hours they had been drinking. “Karozzin” mumbled the witness after a few moments.  “Twanny was always on the phone, even on Sunday,” he said.

The lawyer pointed out that the barman had testified to having heard the phone call and had overheard details. “Are you hard of hearing?,” suggested De Marco. “A little,” said the witness “I used to work in construction.” “But you heard the accused shouting ‘ejja pufta’ from the other end of the street,” pointed out the lawyer.

Moving on to the shooting, she asked why Borg had thrown the handgun away after firing two shots. “I don’t know. He threw it away hux.”

“Was Allan hiding behind cars?” she asked. He was, the witness said. “So I don’t’ think he was firing into the air, was he?”

Asked why the supposed knife waving and name-calling incidents were first mentioned in court, he replied that “after seeing a sight like that, you forget things.”

He conceded that the accused had not resisted him when he had taken the knife from him. Neither had the accused punched Frans once. Asked if he had seen a baton, the witness quietly said that he had not. “He was punching him.”

De Marco suggested that the witness had first seen the knife when Antoine Borg and the accused had come face to face and scuffled. Reading from his statement to police, she asked the witness whether the two had traded blows. Once again, the witness appeared wrong-footed by the question, shifting his weight uneasily in the dock.

“Why did you tell the police that you had first seen the knife in Allan’s hands?” demanded the lawyer. The witness said not a word.

The judge asked Cassar to clarify what he meant by his assertion that the men “ġew f’l-idejn.” “I didn’t see them...at that time...Twanny stumbled backwards and,” stuttered the witness.

The judge asked whether the men had been trading punches, which is what he said he would understand by “scuffled”.

“No they didn’t,” Cassar replied.

A juror asked about the baby and choker-touching incident. Had the witness said anything to the accused? he asked. “I said nothing,” replied Cassar, as the accused looked left and right trying to express disbelief.

The witness dithered as jurors asked questions about the weapon, the seating arrangement at the PN club, repeating, mantra-like, his story.

Prosecution requests the dissolution of the jury

Later on in the sitting, before the jury was reconvened after a brief coffee break, prosecutor Lara Lanfranco requested the dissolution of the jury.

She informed the court that the prosecution felt that “irregularities “ were being committed during the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses.

The witnesses “were not being given the necessary attention and control,” she said. Whilst it is true that the defence had a job to do, “witnesses should not be ridiculed on the witness stand, simply for maintaining their version of events”. This may have caused “irremediable prejudice” to the prosecution’s case.

By way of reply, laywer Joe Giglio submitted that this request “emanated from the lack of understanding of the point of cross-examination.” He described as “shameful,” the fact that the prosecution’s feeling that their witnesses had been discredited by the cross-examination.

There was no legal reason to dissolve the jury, said the lawyer. “In the best hypothesis, this comment is frivoulous.”

The court turned down the prosecution’s request and called in the second witness, Inspector Chris Pullicino, who had been part of the homicide investigation squad of the police force at the time.

Police inspector says accused claimed to have been challenged to fight by victim

The witness had interrogated the accused, who he said, had refused three offers to be allowed to consult with a lawyer at that point.

The accused had asked to speak to Dr. Giglio, after which he had retracted his initial confession of having threatened to "cut up, and eat, Borg." Pullicino could not recall the accused asking for a doctor before his interrogation, but the policeman conceded that he had complained that he had been hit on the head with a hard object.

De Marco asked him why the words “inqattghak” (“I will cut you up”) were not corroborated by the two other officers who accompanied him.

“I can only testify to what I heard,” he replied. She asked whether he had mentioned the baton before. “I would not be correct if I told my officers what to write.” He insisted that the accused had only mentioned the baton after speaking to Giglio, but was uncertain of the timing. “I swear this what he said. I don’t know if he said it before or after he spoke to the lawyer.”

The accused was drenched in blood, he said. De Marco pointed out that the only thing he had noted about the accused today was the fact that he had not been wearing glasses when he had questioned him.

“Let me tell you,” replied the policeman angrily. “He never wore those glasses, not even when he was signing the bail book.”

He accused the lawyer of trying to get him in trouble, but his reason was drowned out by the defence pointing out that he was not entitled to address it in that matter.

Answering a prosecution question, the inspector said “to be precise, I never heard anyone mention the accused saying ‘Ejja pufta’ during the investigation” . 

“Don’t you remember him with bruises to his side, a swollen eye and bleeding from a head wound ?” asked  De Marco. "Didn’t you feel the need to send him to hospital?” The inspector said that he hadn't felt the accused needed hospital treatment, adding that he had been seen by a doctor later.

At the end of the sitting, the prosecution declared its submissions closed.

Lawyers Lara Lanfranco and Kristina Debattista from the Attorney General's Office are leading the prosecution, while lawyer Giannella de Marco, Joe Giglio and Steven Tonna Lowell are defence counsel. Lawyers Franco Debono and Matthew Brincat are appearing parte civile for the family of the deceased.

Mr Justice Antonio Mizzi is presiding.