Bastjan Borg inquiry | Police acted in self-defence

The inquiry into the 2007 police shooting and death of a mentally infirm man, Bastjan Borg, 52 of Qormi, has exonerated the police officer who fired five shots at the man.

In a statement, home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima had concluded that the members of the police corps had acted "in legitimate defence" in circumstances that "clearly show the aggression against the police was grievous, unjust, and inevitable."

Padovani Grima went on to say that "the evidence and established facts manifestly show that the police acted in legitimate defence during the incident that led to the death of Bastjan Borg."

The five-year inquiry came with a series of recommendations of how such cases have to be treated, which Mifsud Bonnici said were being handled by the ministry.

A copy of the inquiry has not yet been published.

Borg was killed by five shots, one to the head and three wounds in his chest and shoulder when police were called to intervene in a disturbance in Qormi, on the night of 4 May, 2007.

Borg was known by police to have been committed to Mount Carmel mental health hospital.

Taser guns were introduced in Malta following the incident in Qormi.