Immigrant insists he did not assault the police

Suleiman Abubaker, the Sudanese migrant who several eyewitnesses said was beaten by police officers while he was handcuffed, has denied assultaing the officers who arrested him.

This version contradicts his guilty plea in court last Saturday, when he admitted to assaulting three police officers.

Yet, when asked in a brief telephone interview yesterday about his guilty plea he said: "No, no, I never said I beat policemen, I never did that," apparently unaware of what really went on in the expeditious proceedings which earned him a suspended jail term.

He was charged during an urgent court hearing last Sunday, a day after the incident. The hearing lasted only a few minutes after Mr Abubaker pleaded guilty.

He admitted that he did not tell anyone he was beaten. "I didn't want any trouble and I was scared... I didn't say that I was beaten," he explained.

But despite contradicting his plea in court, his story seems to tally with that of a number of eyewitnesses who were baffled by his admission.

A number of eyewitnesses, spearheaded by Rebecca Filletti, who was arrested on the night of the incident after questioning the police's methods, said that they had seen Mr Abubaker and another immigrant being brutally beaten by the police for no reason.

In the case of a second migrant, Kaba Konate, from the Ivory Coast, the eyewitnesses said that he had resisted arrest but had not been violent in any way. Yet he was also found guilty of assaulting the three police officers after pleading guilty.

In the case of Mr Abubaker, the eyewitnesses arrived after the police but none of them saw him behave violently. Ms Filletti said: "The man did not put up a fight. He merely lay on the ground crying and screaming for them to stop, saying he had done nothing wrong."

The police launched an internal investigation after The Times last Monday reported comments from the eyewitnesses. Mr Abubaker was interviewed earlier on Wednesday in the presence of human rights lawyer Katrine Camilleri.

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told The Sunday Times in an interview that he was perplexed as to why claims the men were beaten did not emerge in court.

"This is part of my dilemma: They were beaten - alleged that they were beaten - and didn't say anything about this in court. This bothered me a bit, but I will also get into that... It shows that maybe the judicial system didn't work the way we want it to work. These things should be drawn to the attention of the court."

The minister said he was looking into what happened, though pointed out that when an accused pleads guilty the court does not hear any evidence.

When asked if he would seek to do anything about their sentences if their beating claims were substantiated, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said: "I am not clear what should or should not happen at this moment in time. But we would consider this."

Mr Abubaker is still sore and has a number of injuries, particularly to his hands, eyes and head, some of them sustained after he was punched by a Libyan man.

His ordeal started when he was refused entry into a nightclub. He said: "I was trying to go into a club and the security man there told me I could not go in. I went away and a Libyan man came over and said to me it's obvious they don't let you ******* klandestini enter, they don't even let me in... how can they let you go in.

"I never spoke to him and he hit me in the eyes, he had a glass in his hand and he was about to hit me again, I defended myself and in fact he cut my fingers twice. When the police came I said please can you help me, and tried explaining about the Libyan guy...

"I never have a problem with him (the Libyan), catch him... I want you to help me... Then one police officer said arrest him, and they handcuffed me.

"The police beat me in the head on the floor. I started shouting, I don't cause problems, please take them, not me. Then they took me to the police station."

The eyewitnesses said he was handcuffed to a railing and left lying on the floor at the police station.

"He was treated like an animal, like a dog," Katrina Zammit Cuomo said, pointing out that the police shut the door of the station for about 15 minutes after the crowd that gathered demanding that the man be treated humanely.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com