Guinean stalker cleared of burglary charges

A Guinean national who had been jailed last September for stalking a Hamrun couple, has been cleared of attempting to burgle the house belonging to the same couple, three times in a three-month period.



Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech was told how the accused, Abou Diallo, 39, of Guinea, had allegedly tried to break into Carmel and Erminia Borg's house in Hamrun on 18 July, 22 August and 23 September 2014.

While out on bail for these charges, Diallo had continued to bedevil the couple. The Guinean had later admitted to charges of harassment and stalking, for which he had been handed an 8-month prison sentence in March 2015.

The principal witnesses in the attempted burglary trial had been the Borg couple, as well as a neighbour. They had reported seeing a “dark-skinned man” loitering in the area on several occasions around the time of the alleged attempted break-in.

Erminia Borg had testified to finding the accused in the terrace of her house on one occasion and on another, in the bedroom at night. Reacting to her screams, the intruder had allegedly leapt out of the open window. The woman had insisted to the court that she had “felt she was being stalked.” 



Carmel Borg had testified to have been woken up in the middle of the night by his wife, who told him that she had seen someone inside the house and that he had called the police.

A neighbour had also reported seeing the accused trying to open a window to gain access to the couple's residence.

On one occasion, she had called him up at work telling him that a black man had jumped into their balcony and had been tapping on the glass door.

On that occasion, the accused had been detained by passers-by, allegedly whilst attempting to gain entry to the couple's house in the pre-dawn hours and was subsequently arrested. After his arrest, he was found to match the description of a man whom the couple had reported to have been knocking on their front door late at night, in August.

The police had also exhibited CCTV footage of a man alleged to be the accused, in the act of damaging a car in Marsa. The court, however cleared Diallo of charges of causing voluntary damage to the vehicle, holding that the quality of the images was too poor to allow for the identification of the person filmed as the accused.

The court highlighted several inconsistencies in the man's account, also pointing out that he had never actually laid eyes on the accused himself. Neither was anything stolen from the house on any occasion.

Diallo was acquitted of the theft-related charges, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech giving prominent mention to the fact that the dates given by the occupants did not tally with those specified in the charges.

While the court noted that the man had tapped on the glass door in a bid to attract the occupants' attention, which was plainly not thief-like behaviour, it had little doubt that the man had continued to harass the couple after being granted bail for the burglary charge. The man's behaviour in this case did not give rise to the offences of theft or attempted theft but to that of harassment and causing fear of violence, held the court.

The court acquitted Diallo of the theft-related accusations, noting that he had already been convicted for the harassment last year and had been sentenced to 8 months imprisonment for those acts.