Man acquitted of trying to kill school friend

A man standing trial for the attempted murder of a school friend in a fight outside the Labour Party club in Balzan was yesterday found not guilty of trying to kill him but of causing serious injury.

Jurors found Marco Vella also known as Il-Ħabsi, 43, of Birkirkara, by eight votes to one guilty of grievous bodily harm and unanimously guilty of illegally carrying a knife and breaching the peace. The charge of relapsing was not contested.

On Monday jurors heard how, Mr Vella was involved in an argument with another friend Stephen Falzon when the two men took the fight out of the club and into the street in August 2003.

After the victim, Raymond Farrugia, tried to break up the fight, Mr Vella attacked him with the knife and stabbed him in his right side.

Just before submissions on punishment, Mr Vella’s mother Dolores, 63, took the witness stand and said he is her only son after his brother died of a heart attack.

She said that she accompanied him to the detox centre to stop him meeting his shady friends. She added that they looked after each other and lived together and that he suffered from diabetes and spent time in the intensive care unit recently due to a bad bout of bronchitis.

Defence lawyer Roberto Montalto told Mr Justice Lawrence Quintano that his client had not committed a crime for the past eight years, except for one conviction for simple possession of drugs.

The very fact that he had spent between 1986 and 2001 committing crimes and then stopped abruptly meant he had learnt his lesson, the lawyer said. He added that his client deserved a probation period to keep him on the straight and narrow.

However, lawyer Lara Lanfranco from the Attorney General’s Office, said that she considered all the aspects of the case and although she was not after a pound of flesh, a message had to be sent to society about people who committed such violent crimes and called for an effective jail term.

Mr Justice Quintano will hand down judgment tomorrow.

Lawyer Marion Camilleri also appeared for Mr Vella.