A Zabbar man was yesterday acquitted of seriously injuring the man who at the time was his girlfriend's sister's boyfriend after a court ruled he acted in self-defence.

Mark Farrugia, 23, was found not guilty of seriously injuring Arthur Abela in Tas-Salib, limits of Rabat, on October 19, 2000 and breaching the peace.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera ruled she could not really tell who started the fight and both men suffered bites and scratches but she was more prepared to believe that Abela was angry with Farrugia because he felt Farrugia was treated much better by the in-laws than he was.

She heard Victor Zahra, the girls' father, explain how his daughters' boyfriends started fighting and the daughter seeing Abela (and who eventually married him) left home after the fight never to return.

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