Sailor who knifed shipmate gets suspended sentence

In an incident bearing an uncanny resemblance to the popular sea shanty, a ship's chef has admitted to stabbing his friend and crewmate in the neck after a drunken argument on board a merchant vessel berthed at Marsa, during the early hours of Tuesday morning.

45-year-old Khaled Ahmed Elfghi from Tripoli appeared before magistrate Francesco Depasquale this afternoon, charged with grievous bodily harm and carrying a knife in public without police permission.

The details of the attack, which took place on board the MV Shada, berthed at Marsa, are not known. Sources inform MaltaToday that the men were been drunk when the disagreement boiled over, however this could not be independently verified as both men chose not to give police a detailed account of the event.

Lawyer Martin Fenech, appearing as legal aid to the accused, explained to the court that the men were friends whose families knew each other. The attack was unprecedented, added the lawyer and the accused “had not been in control of himself” at the time of the assault.

The victim of the assault, a fellow sailor called Ali Mohammed Mohammed, was in court today sporting a cut on the bridge of his swollen nose. Mohammed informed the court that he had forgiven the accused for the incident.

Fenech entered a guilty plea and requested the court consider a suspended sentence, in view of the accused’s clean police conduct and the victim's forgiveness. Prosecuting inspector Jeffrey Scicluna did not object to the proposal.

In its considerations on punishment, the court noted that the crime was a serious and grave one, also taking the victim’s forgiveness into consideration.

Elfghi was handed a three-year prison sentence, suspended for four years and warned that he could have been jailed for up to nine years.