Criminal case against RIU officer accused of beating up motorist set to continue

A police officer has failed to convince the Constitutional Court that he had suffered several breaches of his constitutional rights during the assault investigation

The officers are facing charges relating to the incident in proceedings and are denying beating Aquilina
The officers are facing charges relating to the incident in proceedings and are denying beating Aquilina

A police officer, one of two charged with viciously beating up a motorist in 2015, has failed to convince the courts that he had suffered several breaches of his constitutional rights during the investigation into the incident.

PC David Camilleri, together with another officer, PC Mark Tonna, had been charged with assaulting Jean Paul Aquilina over an incident which occurred after he was pulled over on suspicion of DUI in 2015. The case against the officers is still pending, having been stalled by the filing of the constitutional case.

During Aquilina's arraignment on charges of assaulting police, resisting arrest and dangerous driving, he had alleged that it had been the police officers who had assaulted him. The court had been shown photographs of the man's swollen face and heard a recording of the panicked emergency call placed by Aquilina's girlfriend, who had been present during the assault. The man's girlfriend had testified before magistrate Carol Peralta how Camilleri had approached Aquilina from behind and placed him in a choke hold, before throwing him to the ground and punching him in the eye. 

“Mark (Tonna) got out of the car and held Jean down so he could not defend himself while David (Camilleri) punched and kicked him,” the woman had said.

“At one point Jean was face down with his face against the tarmac with a shoe on his face. David's shoe. David told him ‘you have to stay there’ and then pulled him up and pushed him against his car, breaking the mirror. Then he put him on the pavement again and carried on hitting him.”

 The beating had only stopped when another RIU car arrived, she said, one of the arriving officers handcuffing Aquilina. Shortly afterwards, her parents and more police officers arrived.

Aquilina was later cleared of assaulting the officers and resisting arrest.

David Camilleri, who is understood to still be a serving police officer, subsequently filed a constitutional case against the prosecuting police inspector Nicholas Vella, as well as police inspectors Ramon Mercieca and Jesmond Micallef from the police force's office of internal affairs, the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General.

Camilleri had based his claim on the fact that his he had testified and released statements during the police force's internal inquiry into the incident without his lawyer being present. He argued that his right to a fair hearing and the privilege against self-incrimination had been breached, saying he feared that they would be used against him. He also claimed that his right to association in a trade union had been breached by the Internal Affairs Unit, who he claimed had exerted pressure intended to discourage and influence him not to go to his union.

The IAU had retorted that it had already been made clear to Camilleri that his statement made during the internal inquiry would not be used against him in court. Inspectors Mercieca and Micallef testified that Camilleri had released another statement before the board of inquiry, after being cautioned according to law, precisely because of this. He had been informed of his right to be assisted by a lawyer at that stage and had freely chosen not to use it.

The defendants argued that the action was filed a month before criminal proceedings had been instituted against Camilleri, saying that it was “certainly untrue that the applicant could complain of a lack of a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal, within a reasonable time.”

Judge Mark Chetcuti, presiding the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction observed that the plaintiff wished to impugn the validity of the criminal proceedings against him and stop them, by claiming they had been vitiated by breaches of his human rights.

The court pointed out that the constitutional application had been filed before criminal proceedings against Camilleri had even started, when none of his fundamental rights could have been breached. “The court can only find breaches where it is being asked to find breaches, that is, in the proceedings filed against the applicant,” the judge said.

The court further noted that the prosecution had formally declared that it would not be using the testimony Camilleri had delivered in the case against Jean Paul Aquilina, before going on to observe that in fact this testimony had, in fact, not been exhibited in the criminal case against Camilleri, which had since proceeded beyond the evidence stage.

“Finally it must be said that the privilege against self-incrimination is not absolute and there may be circumstances where this is compatible with a fair hearing.”

“The investigation and subsequent criminal charges against the applicant were uniquely the result of his illegal actions, that is the use of excessive force on a third person, causing injury to that person equals a crime which he was duty-bound to prevent and not commit himself.”

The court dismissed the case, concluding that Camilleri had not exhausted his ordinary remedies at law before filing constitutional proceedings and that the case had been filed too early.

Lawyer Tonio Azzopardi was Camilleri's legal counsel in the constitutional proceedings, whilst lawyers Robert Abela, Alfred Abela, Stefano Filletti and Roma D'Allessandro appeared for the defendants.