Libyan victims give court nebulous account of violent incident with Syrian gang

Two men who had been involved in a fight with a group of Syrian men in Bugibba last July have given a court vague and reluctant testimony about the incident, after claiming to have forgiven their assailants.

Al Khadur Fadi, 26,  Najar Ghyas, 20, Al Maaloul Abdulkhader, 19 and Alghazi Abdallah, 19, all born in Syria and residing at St Paul's Bay, had been identified and charged last week with affray and causing grievous injury, following a police investigation into an incident which occurred in July.

In recent years the comparatively low rents in the Northern coastal towns of Bugibba and St. Paul's Bay have attracted groups of workers from abroad and has become a hotspot for petty crime and violence involving different nationalities. In a previous sitting, Inspector Maurice Curmi from the Qawra police station had told magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech how, on the third of July at around 10.30pm, a group of around 10 foreign men, who are believed to be Syrian, had been harassing a female customer at a restaurant in Bugibba Square and trying to remove her chair.

Seeing this, a passing man had told the gang to stop, only for the group to turn on him and attack. The man was grievously injured by a glass bottle in the resulting altercation, the court was told.

Inspector Curmi told the court today how at 2:30am a Libyan man had gone to tell the police that he had been the man injured at the nearby table. The Syrians had then gone to file a police report of their own, but were not seen to have suffered any injuries, said the inspector.

The accused had been identified, one of them through social media, and called in for questioning. They had told the police that they had been involved but claimed that the incident had been instigated by the Libyans.

Defence lawyer Franco Galea asked about how the men had been identified. “Nobody knew who the fourth man was, but a relative of the victim found him on Facebook.” The other three men had come to the police station of their own accord, accompanied by a co-national, he said.

One of the Libyan men involved in the altercation was Bugibba resident Helmi Abdurav Saleh from Tripoli. Summoned to the witness stand, he was unwilling to testify.

“I had problem but now it is OK, I have forgiven them,” he said. The court explained that the police had charged the men which did not depend on his complaint and the prosecution had to continue. 

He had been in Bugibba square, having a coffee, he said. “All of a sudden, someone punched me in the head. I have absolutely nothing to do with this case.”

Magistrate warned him that he could be detained by the court if it suspected him of lying.

“I don’t know. I was hit with a bottle in my head and was dizzy. I woke up in hospital,” protested the man.

“Do bottles normally fall from heaven in Bugibba square?” asked the court. “Why did you go to the police station? Is someone threatening you?”

Galea suggested that the person might not be the same individual mentioned by the accused. “Not many people would have had a bottle land on their head,” the magistrate pointed out.

“There were a lot of people in the square...” began the witness.

He was warned again, the court pointing out that he had just said he had forgiven someone. “Who is he forgiving if bottles fall out of the sky?”

Saleh said he had never claimed to have recognised anyone. Asked directly whether he had seen anyone playing somewhere, he said he hadn’t. “After I was hit I found myself in hospital and then I went to the Bugibba police station to file a report.”

The man, who still has a visible scar above his eyebrow, told the court that he did not recognize a document that he had supposedly given the police. “I don’t know how to read,”  he said.

Another Libyan man involved in the fracas, Mabruk Abdul Latif testified next, telling the court that he had been having coffee with his wife and family and that a fight had taken place with Syrians, whom he recognised in the courtroom.

“Because of the wife and the baby I don’t want fight or worry, so I forgive them,” he said.

Magistrate Frendo Dimech advised that the court would take the victim’s forgiveness into consideration if sentencing, but explained that the crime was not only against Latif, but also against Maltese society as a whole. The case was going to continue, she said, warning him not to hold any information back

Latif had been with his wife, her mother and her younger sister, he said. “They bothered us by singing. They were in the cafe in the corner and we were walking past. When we were around 5 to 7 meters away, they were playing football with a doll and kicked it right under my wife’s legs. I went to talk to him and give him the doll,” said the man, later saying he could not remember who he had given the doll to.

“Then I was hit in the head and there were bottles flying.” The witness said he did not know who had hit him with the bottle.

The court pointed out that the police had charged the foursome with voluntarily harming him. “Had they come up to you to pick up the doll?” she asked. “They did,” he replied,  “but then we came to blows.” The men had pulled away his wife’s chair, he said, but could not identify the man who did this.

Despite his evident reluctance in testifying against the men, he confirmed that the four men in the dock had hit him.

Latif had not seen any groups of Libyans in the area, he added.

The case continues in November.