Newsbook
By John Paul Cordina
Saturday June 17, 2023
A 23-year-old man was jailed for two years after he was convicted of violently assaulting a Somali man at Mġarr harbour in the summer of 2021, an incident which had been filmed and cheered by many onlookers.
The incident took place at around 1am at Mġarr Harbour on 18 July, 2021, and shows the Somali national being attacked by some 15 men before he is thrown into the sea.
The footage sparked outrage, not least since many bystanders appeared to be cheering the assault, and eventually led to the arraignment of Deelian Mifsud, who faced five charges in total: attacking the victim with the intent of causing grievous injury, inflicting slight injuries, causing damage to his property, breaching the public peace and breaching the terms of a probation order that had been issued on October 2020.
But the evidence presented by the prosecution was deemed insufficient to prove two of these charges – the infliction of slight injuries and the damage to the victim’s property – by Magistrate Simone Grech.
In her view, the police failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the slight injuries the victim was certified to have suffered had been caused by the defendant: not least since the victim could well have been injured by others involved in the melee that had ensued.
The charge of wilful damage concerned the victim’s mobile phone, which was ruined when he ended up in the water, but the victim’s description of his phone did not match the one provided by the police: who submitted photographic evidence showing a different type of mobile phone.
Magistrate Grech also found no evidence of any racial motivations behind the attack: while an eyewitness confirmed hearing racial slurs, these had been uttered by someone else.
Nevertheless, the magistrate – supported by eyewitness testimony – found that there was enough evidence to find Mifsud guilty of assaulting the victim and of breaching the public peace.
The charge that Mifsud breached a probation order was referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which had issued it in the first place.
Magistrate Grech took into consideration Mifsud’s criminal record – which had seen the courts issue a number of probation orders in a bid to help him reforms – as she concluded that an effective jail term was appropriate, sentencing him to two years’ imprisonment and ordering him to pay €281.40 in court expenses.
A protection order in favour of the victim was also issued.
Inspector Josef Gauci from the Gozo police district prosecuted.