Libyan wins second court victory after stabbing incident

A Libyan man who had been convicted of stabbing and injuring another man had his conviction quashed on appeal today.

Moamr Ali Melad Eltarhuni, 27, last March was found not guilty of attempting to kill his friend Shokri Ali Alalwani but convicted of seriously injuring another man, Aimen Al Ghanemi, who tried to separate the two men during the fight.

The case happened in 2006.

A jury had acquitted him of the attempted murder charge after finding that he acted in self-defence.

Mr Alalwani had attacked Mr Eltarhuni after being unable to find a CD and blamed him for its disappearance. Under an onslaught of punches, Mr Eltarhuni got hold of a knife and stabbed him with it. As Mr Ghanemi tried to separate the two, he was injured.

Jurors had found Eltarhuni guilty of seriously injuring Mr Ghanemi but the act was excusable because of his state of mental agitation.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono jailed Mr Eltarhuni for a year but he only had a month to serve since he was in custody during the proceedings.

Defence lawyer Joe Brincat had insisted at the time that his client should not have been found guilty of serious injury given that the jury had recognised that the wounds were inflicted on his friend in an agitated mental state. His client simply did not intend hurting Mr Ghanemi.

Moreover, he said that since self-defence had been accepted, he should neither have been found guilty of using a knife illegitimately.

In its judgement this morning, the court upheld Dr Brincat's argument. It also decided that Mr Eltarhuni could ot be found guilty of illegal possession of a knife since the knife used in the incident happened to be at the place where the incident happened.