Farmers fined for assault on BirdLife volunteers

Two Rabat farmers were yesterday fined €80 and received a conditional discharge after they admitted to assaulting two BirdLife volunteers, who were not injured in the incident.

Brothers Carmelo and Angelo Micallef pleaded guilty to assaulting the BirdLife Malta Spring Watch volunteers in Dingli last month after the volunteers heard shots being fired and went to investigate.

The farmers also admitted to breaching the public peace and threatening the BirdLife members.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera fined the men and ordered them not to approach the volunteers for a year under a guarantee of €233.

The incident was caught on camera by one of the volunteers but the camera was dropped during the incident and taken by the men. It was later handed over to the police with the footage deleted.

However, the footage was recovered using special recovery software and passed on to the police.

Shortly after the incident, the farmers had filed a judicial protest claiming that the two volunteers had trespassed on their land but they dropped the allegations during yesterday's sitting.

Lawyer Patrick Valentino appeared for the men.

Lawyer Joseph Giglio appeared for the volunteers.