[WATCH] Labour, PN air each others’ thugs with differing videos of Xarabank brawl

PN media identifies Louis Psaila ‘ix-Xafra’ in Xarabank audience, Labour video reveals Birkirkara FC supporter Terence Ciantar shoving audience

As the PN wants you to see it, Louis Psaila, left, and as Labour wants you to see it: Terence Ciantar (right)
As the PN wants you to see it, Louis Psaila, left, and as Labour wants you to see it: Terence Ciantar (right)
Both Labour and PN videos on Xarabank confrontation

The Nationalist Party has hit back at Labour’s accusations of a confrontation fomented by PN supporters in a Xarabank audience, accusing a Labour supporter of having joined the fray.

Earlier on Sunday morning, a video released by junior minister Silvio Schembri on Facebook  identified a purported PN security official as one of the instigators of a heated argument in the Xarabank studios.

The loud and heated commotion erupted inside the Xarabank studios on Friday evening with several members of the audience getting out of their seats on the stand, during the popular programme’s commercial break

While it is not entirely known what caused the argument, both Labour and Nationalist party media were eager to blame supporters of either party present in the studio.

The video released by Schembri, whose father John Schembri, the Luqa mayor, was in the audience, shows Terence Ciantar - billed in the edited video as a security officer for PN leader Adrian Delia - pushing people onto the audience seats during the argument. The PN has denied that Ciantar holds any official security post with the party.

In the PN’s media organ’s bulletin instead, Net News took to task Louis Psaila, known as ‘ix-Xafra’, who was present in the audience and is seen joining the commotion during the heated argument. Psaila had allegedly discharged a firearm outside the residence of former Nationalist works minister Louis Galea in 1989 when he would no longer engage him to hire his dumpers to the Auxiliary Workers Training Scheme.

It did not broadcast the shots where Terence Ciantar is shown violently pushing people down the audience stands.

Terence Ciantar, 35, was previously charged with provoking a fight between Birkirkara and Hibs supporters by throwing an inflatable banana at supporters of the opposing team in 2015. Ciantar, a supporter of the Birkirkara team once chaired by Adrian Delia, was among a number of fans involved in the scuffle that broke out in a pitch invasion when Birkirkara clinched the FA Trophy with a 2-0 win.

Friday’s Xarabank segment was divided into two parts: the first was an interview with PN leader Adrian Delia and the second was a discussion on the situation inside the Nationalist Party.

PN secretary-general Clyde Puli can be seen in the silent footage obtained by One News, which claimed that PN voters in the studio had insulted the relatives of parliamentary secretary for financial services Silvio Schembri – his father John Schembri, the Luqa mayor, was present in the audience.

On the other hand, the Nationalist Party’s media said that the police had to be called upon after Schembri’s father provoked a member of the general public.

Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi is overheard trying to calm things down as someone announces that two minutes remain before the show is to resume.