Man charged with death of Sudanese man may have been protecting his friend

The trial by jury of Antonel Dobre, accused of causing the death of a 26-year-old Sudanese man, enters its second day

A jury has been told that a man charged with causing the death of 26-year-old Osama Al Shazliyay Saleh from Sudan, by knocking him to the ground, may have been trying to protect his friend.

The trial of Antonel Dobre continued today, with the man who had been clubbing with the accused testifying that he believed that Dobre was trying to protect him.

Radu Rica told the court that he had been in Malta for approximately one month, looking for work at the time and had known Dobre for about three.

“That night I took my girlfriend, who worked in a club, to work, and then I met up with Antonel [Dobre]. We decided to stay together and chat. We are Romanian, we wanted to hang out,” said the witness.

After chatting for some time, they went for a walk and entered a club. He could not recall the name of the club, but the area he described was consonant with the area where the incident took place. “I had dropped off my girlfriend at Steam, as she worked there.”

He said he got to know that the accused was in a relationship and had two girls.

He said they both did not like going to clubs, hence their staying outside for so long, but they decided to check out a club. They sat around a table at the back of the club and ordered some drinks – vodka Redbull. “It was the first drink I had that night, but I think Antonel [Dobre] had something to drink beforehand.” After an hour of joking together, Rica went to the bathroom.

“When I was coming out of the bathroom, a dark-skinned man hit me on the nose with his elbow”.  He said he had no idea why he was hit on the nose, but, “from what I think, it was intentional. If someone raises his elbow and hits you with it, it can’t be an accident. Perhaps he mistook be me for someone else”.

He said he had no doubts as to who had struck him, despite the crowded conditions of the club, but he did not have the opportunity to speak with the man who hit him, as security had pulled the dark-skinned man away. Another security guard handed Rica a tissue as he was bleeding from the nose. He then went back to his table with Dobre. “I told him, someone hit me and he told me to sit down till the bleeding stopped.” After that, they decided to head home.

“When we left the club, the dark-skinned person saw us and approached us. He was angry and using bad language as he was approaching us... words that start with ‘F’.” Security guards in front of the club decided to intervene, said Rica.

Lawyer Kevin Valletta, from the office of the Attorney General pointed out discrepancies between the versions of events he had given in previous proceedings.

Rica explained that discrepancies in the details of his testimony during previous hearings were probably down to mistakes in translation. “I noted the translator wasn’t translating everything,” said Rica. “I was very nervous and scared... a policeman had told us we were both going to be locked up.”

What he did remember, he said, was that some bouncers approached them and Dobre pushing the victim, who fell.

“I saw him [Dobre] lifting his arm and push him with his palm”. He demonstrated an open-palm strike under the chin. The positioning of the two men, as described by Rica, was similar to the footage.

Rica will continue his testimony tomorrow, after spending the night in court.

Earlier today, the jury was shown CCTV footage of the confrontation which led to Saleh’s death.

The footage, exhibited by court expert Dr Martin Bajada, shows a dark-skinned man walk up to a group of people outside the Pizza by Luca outlet, and interact with the people there. Something then attracts his attention from the road. The man is then seen walking towards that direction and within 20 seconds, he is on the ground.

At the top right frame in another clip, from Hugo Special, shows one man wearing a white t-shirt and what appears to be a scarf, drawing his right hand back – seemingly winding up a punch. Another person, wearing a black jacket over a white shirt, falls backwards onto the ground and remains motionless. Neither of the men’s heads are visible, as they are out of the top of the frame.

Roughly two minutes later, the man in the scarf and another individual are then seen walking down the road in a hurry.

The jury also heard the testimony of police sergeant Duncan Demicoli, who at the time was stationed at St Julian’s.

Demicoli recalled how, at 06:50am on the day, his station had received a call from control room telling them that there was a man on the ground in Paceville, bleeding from the head. He found the victim on the floor, face up, unconscious, breathing with difficulty. “His eyes had rolled back into his head and there was a considerable amount of blood”.

“I noted there was a metal manhole cover under his head. It looked like he had hit his head on this.”

An ambulance arrived soon after and Demicoli helped pushed the crowd back to give medical staff a space in which to work. He remembered the paramedic telling him, “I don’t think he’ll be with us much longer”. The police sergeant had spoken to Jesmond Vella, a bouncer who works at Clique, the establishment outside of which the altercation took place. Vella had told them that a Romanian man wearing a blue jeans and blue shirt had punched the victim and knocked him over.

Assistant Police Commissioner Stephen Gatt also testified how he had visited the hospital where he was informed that the victim was in danger of dying. 

He, too had spoken to Jesmond Vella, who reported an argument between a Sudanese and “a person who from his accent was either Romanian or Italian, but likely Romanian”. Vella told him that he had separated the two men, but “suddenly a punch was thrown and the victim went down”. Vella had said that he tried to apprehend the person who had thrown the punch, but was unsuccessful.

Gatt told the jury that he had subsequently watched the CCTV footage of a man wearing a jumper and jeans and scarf punching another man who ends up on the floor. Another camera in St Augustine Street shows this same person holding his head in his hands, as if in anguish.

“We didn’t know the name of the Romanian. We were informed that Dobrev’s brother, who was working on a construction project at an establishment, three doors down from the place had been heard saying that his brother had been involved in a fight in Paceville, had gone to hospital but was not treated and had got on the first flight to Romania to be treated there”.