Inmate acquitted of injuring another prisoner

A prisoner was today found not guilty of seriously injuring another prisoner, now dead, threatening him and breaching the peace.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke said a fight had taken place at the forensic ward hall of Mount Carmel Hospital between Jonathon Attard, 32, and the late Stephen Spiteri following an argument between Mr Spiteri and Mario Camilleri, known as l-Imniehru.

The accused and others in the same room intervened to stop the fight but as Mr Attard tried to stop Mr Spiteri fighting, Mr Spiteri started fighting with him.

Others then had to intervene to stop the fight. The dynamics of the incident could be seen from CCTV stills, Magistrate Clarke said.

She said that all witnesses, except for the accused, had been reluctant to say what really happened.

Mr Spiteri had given a different version of events to a policeman and a nurse and he was not clear as to how he came to suffer his ear injuries when he was in court.

Magistrate Clarke said it could be that during his intervention on Mr Spiteri, Mr Attard had been too rough but the evidence produced did not result that his intervention had been intended to cause injury.

It had also not been sufficiently proven that Mr Attard had wounded Mr Spiteri.