Attempted murder trial: 'If the brick hit him it would've split him in two,' forensic expert says

The Court has heard graphic details of the attack on Mario Grech, including evidence of bricks and oil being hurled into a courtyard, raising questions about the speed of the thrown objects and the potential consequences.

The trial of Paul Borg, accused of attempted murder in a violent courtyard attack in Żebbuġ, has seen disputes over video footage and expert analysis of the speed and force of objects hurled at the victim.

The case goes back to 12 September 2020 when at around 10:30am at a residence in Żebbuġ, the victim was sitting in the courtyard of his son's residence doing some work on the ladder on a wall separating the property from that of the accused. Borg allegedly climbed onto the roof leading into the courtyard where Grech was working and hurdled several objects.

The Court continued to hear more testimonies on Friday. A doctor from the health centre explained the injuries suffered by Mario Grech when he was allegedly beaten by the Borg family. He said that he had several bruises and cuts on his head, some of which had to be closed with stitches.

A worker who was at the residence on the day of the attempted murder also testified. He said that he was in the garage when he suddenly heard some shouting.

“At first I didn’t go out into the yard to see what was happening but the shouting increased and when I did, I saw two bricks on the ground, some broken floor tiles and black oil in the pool” the witness recounted. He went on to say that he immediately saw the accused throwing another can of oil and the police ordered him to stop throwing things.

The jurors also heard the testimony of the carpenter who carried out restoration work on the openings and the front door of the residence. During cross-examination, the defence raised doubts about the ‘quotation’ made by the carpenter because instead of a signature, he put down a ‘carpenter’s signature’. The witness replied that he wrote such a quotation but could not remember how he signed it.

An engineer appointed as a technical expert by the Court testified that he was hired to determine the speed of the bricks when they were thrown, particularly the one that passed near the victim. He explained that from the security camera footage he could see the height of the wall, because part of the rows were exposed. It was seen how the footage was recorded at “30 frames per second” and the height of the wall is 6.92 meters. When he made his calculations, it turned out that from the roof to the floor, the brick did not take a second to arrive but took a little less than half a second.

The defence and the jurors raised doubts about the amount of frames in the footage because yesterday the Court-appointed expert on videography testified that the footage is eight frames per second. The jurors asked the engineer how accurate the system by which he established the amount of ‘frames’ in the video is. The witness replied that the system is “very accurate” but lawyer Mark Vassallo disagreed and said that when he himself checked the ‘properties’ of the video he found that it has eight ‘frames per second’ as the videography expert had said.

The defence asked the Court to have the video uploaded onto a ‘laptop’ and the ‘properties’ of the video checked immediately, in order to establish such an issue. The Court granted the request, and it resulted that the video has eight frames per second. In light of this, the engineer explained that this means that the 30th frame showed eight different images in the video. The defence did not agree with this argument.

The last witness of the trial was Mario Scerri, appointed as a forensic doctor by the Court.

“If the brick had hit him, it could have split him in two,” Scerri testified without hesitation. He explained that after watching the video and a copy of the engineer’s report, from that height, with that speed and with the force that the accused used when throwing the brick, it would have had fatal consequences.

The prosecution is being led by lawyer Ramon Bonett Sladden and Darlene Grima on behalf of the Attorney General's Office.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo are appearing for Paul Borg, the accused.

Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi is representing the parte civile.