A former unlicensed bouncer, Duncan Deguara, was yesterday acquitted of causing the death of an immigrant outside a Paceville nightclub in 2009.

It took jurors just 75 minutes to unanimously agree he was not guilty of causing serious injury that resulted in the death of Suleiman Ismail Abubaker, 28, from Darfur.

The 32-year-old was found guilty of illegally working as a bouncer and fined €500.

When the verdict was read out, Mr Deguara hugged and thanked his defence team, Manuel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi.

During the trial, jurors heard how the accused had pushed the victim out of the nightclub after first refusing to let him in because he was drunk.

The bouncer had left his position for some time and when he returned he noticed that Mr Abubaker had gone in.

Mr Abubaker was portrayed as a drunkard and a violent man who claimed racism whenever he was stopped by security personnel for harassing patrons.

Witnesses, who included entertainment mogul Frankie Grima, recounted that the victim had been involved in other incidents in Paceville and once he was arrested but was so violent that he managed to twist the handcuffs.

Mr Grima testified that, about a year before the victim died, Mr Abubaker had an altercation with the police and some weeks later walked into one of his nightclubs, Plush. To prevent any trouble, Mr Grima said he allowed him in but kept an eye on him when he noticed that he was harassing two foreign women. He told him to calm down and to stop, at which point the victim pushed him to the floor, Mr Grima said.

In his evidence, Mr Deguara said the victim had accused him of being a racist when he threw him out of the nightclub after annoying a woman. The victim, the accused noted, had tried to justify his actions by saying that Maltese women liked black men, making a vulgar gesture with his hands.

Dr Mallia described the verdict as “the voice of the people” adding that “you cannot comment upon a case when you don’t live through it and don’t know anything about the circumstances or the evidence”.

He said “there was no racism in this case as some may have thought”.

Mr Abubaker arrived in Malta in 2005 after fleeing Darfur in 1996. His father and two sisters (his mother died giving birth to a third child) remained in Chad but he moved on in search of a better life. He arrived in Libya in 2002, but felt life there was unbearable.

He stayed at the Marsa open centre after being released from the detention centre and eventually moved to Gozo where he had a job. For some time, he lived in Buġibba but, when the money dried up and he could not afford the rent, he returned to Marsa.

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