Road rage aggressor had threatened to shoot man in 2008

The man charged with attacking and slightly injuring a motorist in a road rage incident last week had, together with his son and another man Chris Gaffarena, allegedly attacked a man in a car in 2008 after threatening to shoot him.

57-year-old Marius Muscat was arraigned in court on 12 August, charged with attacking and slightly injuring 61-year-old Mario Vella in a heated argument on the Birkirkara by-pass. 

Muscat was also charged with damaging Vella’s car, obstructing traffic and disturbing the peace. He was released on bail, after defence lawyer Franco Debono told the court that Muscat had just visited his son, who was being treated in Mater Dei Hospital’s intensive care unit.

Claims that Muscat’s son had suffered burns in a boat fire, which had been started in an attempt at insurance fraud, remain unconfirmed.

As revealed by MaltaToday last week, Muscat is the president of the Transport Services for Disabled Persons Cooperative Ltd (TDP Services), which currently provides school transport services for persons with disability.

Last week’s incident was not Muscat’s first brush with the law, or the first time that he or his sons had tried to beat someone up.

In 2008, Muscat’s sons Adrian and Alan had been charged with attaching another car’s number plate to a Mercedes SUV. Adrian Muscat had been cleared due to lack of evidence, while Alan Muscat was fined €2,574 for driving the unlicensed and uninsured vehicle. 

One year before that, in 2007, Adrian Muscat had been fined after admitting to insulting a police sergeant.

In June 2008, Adrian Muscat had gone to the police, claiming to have been attacked and grievously injured by a man, who was subsequently charged.

In that case, the father and son had claimed that an argument with the man over construction debts had taken place in the offices of architect Robert Musumeci on the day in question. Marius Muscat had stormed out of that meeting. In Rabat later that day, Marius, accompanied by his son Adrian and “a certain Chris Gaffarena,” had met with the man – ostensibly to recover a mobile phone that Muscat had left behind. 

But it emerged that the men had been following the accused’s movements, in connection with the disagreement being discussed at Musumeci’s offices and had threatened to shoot him. “In fact the accused appears to have been so fearful of these people that he felt the need to file a report at the Rabat police station,” the court had noted. 

The man had consistently testified that he had been waiting to pick up a foreign business associate of his, when the three men had pulled up beside his car in an SUV. The business associate had told the court that the sight of the trio, who were of a larger physical build than the aggressor, had led the terrified man to attempt to flee on foot. The Muscats had chased him, while Gaffarena had blocked the associate from opening the car door, also trying to remove the car keys from the ignition. 

The man accused of injuring Adrian Muscat had, in fact, picked up a discarded metal rod from the ground and defended himself with it by hitting Muscat on the head, the court had held, clearing him on the grounds of lawful self-defence. 

It is not known whether the assailants were subsequently prosecuted. Questions sent to the police remained unanswered by the time of going to print.