Murder suspect jailed for four months over threats, insults to prosecuting officer

Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona jailed 34 year-old Nizar El-Gadi for four months after finding him guilty of threatening Police Inspector Keith Arnaud shortly after charging him with his wife's murder.

The incident happened on July 28, shortly after El-Gadi was remanded in custody by a court in which he was charged with murder.

According to Inspector Arnaud, the Libyan suddenly changed his attitude with the police on the eve of his arraignment.

"He started to threaten me and other police officers and even refused to enter a cell after interrogation," Arnaud said, adding that on the following day when he was preparing to escort El-Gadi to court, he threatened to smash up all that came before him if the police paraded him in front of the media.

After the arraignment. El-Gadi allegedly started to threaten Inspector Arnaud for having charged him.

While El-Gadi contested Arnaud's statement, he took the witness stand to say that the Police teased him as they spoke between themselves. "They said they were going home to their families," El-Gadi said, adding that the Inspector allegedly told him: "you Arabs are all the same."

But El-Gadi failed to substantiate his claim when asked by the court.

Inspector Arnaud who also testified, said that El-Gadi was escorted in a prison van to the Police headquarters CID yard, where he was to be transferred to an unmarked police car that was to take him to Corradino prisons soon after his arraignment.

It was her, Inspector Arnaud told the court, that the accused told him that "when the case is over, I will come and find you. I know who you are, I know your family, and I have brothers who will come from Libya to find you..."

While listing a litany of colourful adjectives towards the Inspector, El-Gadi had to be forced into the police car as he resisted any attempt to have him silenced and to obey orders.

His insults also continued during the trip from Floriana to Corradino Prisons.