Updated - Accused had 31 bite marks caused by victim - Migrant suffered such intense pain, he died of a heart attack -

Victor Gelfo

Sep 21st 2012, 04:48

These soldiers, if you consider the forensic report looks really untrained. Even a child won't be bitten by an immobilised person so many times!
Something really went wrong that night. If Mr Kamara had escaped, why did they not call the police! So much 'zeal' to capture a man who was not dangerous.
If Mr Kamara was so agressive, why was no additional help saught, even from the police SRT? They have ways to immobilise an agressive person without hurting him.
And why those blows on the groin! The first reaction when your attacked as self defence is to punch the face to render the agressor dazed.
If Mr Kamara was a Maltese will he be treated in this way!
Why do the Maltese hate so much everything thats not white or christian?

M Micallef

Sep 20th 2012, 21:19

Somehow I can't imagine how he could have been in a position to bite any of those soldiers after he was kicked in the groin ...

D Grima

Sep 20th 2012, 19:28

Li qedghin tinsew huwa il-post fejn gara dan l-accident u qedghin titkellmu habba l-fatt li kienu tlieta.

Jekk is-sitwazzjoni grat f'post issikat, u dawn is-suldati ma kellhomx fejn jiccaqalqu sew, is-sahha tan-numru titlaq u ghalhekk jispicca jiddefendi ruhu is-suldat li kien qieghed fuq quddiem.

Daniel Brincat

Sep 20th 2012, 17:33

They are accused of murder not manslaughter. There are things we do not know.

Alfred Vassallo

Sep 20th 2012, 17:10

Good Lord!! All these bite marks on both soldiers and migrant!! What on earth happened. Somebody here must have lost ALL sense of time and motion.

Anthony Scicluna

Sep 20th 2012, 16:40

did the gentleman bite in self defence or did he throw the first bite?

S Sammut

Sep 20th 2012, 16:29

All this could have been avoided just by basic martial arts training and self defence.
This training involves disabling a person without hurting him....!!!!
What type of training do the soldiers do? Shooting on targets?

Tekle Ghebrezgi

Sep 20th 2012, 16:27

Many of the comments just remind of Steve Biko's death in South African's Apartheid. Many followers of Apartheid then had the same kind of reasoning regarding the circumstances of his death as some of the commentators below. I am not comparing Kamara with Steve Biko. I am comparing your reasoning with the kind of reasoning given under Apartheid rule. Steve Biko was a young non violent dissident second to Mandela. Whether Kamara was violent or not you will continue to find excuses to justify his death. Thankfully, not all the commentators have the same reasoning.

Emmanuel Ebejer

Sep 20th 2012, 16:19

Has it ever occured to you that soldiers don't have an 'S' on their chest and they don't go flying around wearind a cape!!! They are plain and simple human beings.

Patrick Zammit

Sep 20th 2012, 16:19

I would like those who screamed foul so loudly during the past few weeks, to say whether or not they would allow anybody biting them 31 times and take it all sitting down?

Mr francis darmanin

Sep 20th 2012, 16:14

It seems reasonable to draw the conclusion that this guy was defending himself the best way he could whilst handcuffed, that is by using his teeth. A person who is handcuffed should never be beaten, and as someone said the use of force by the uniformed personnel has to be proportional...3 versus 1, and 1 handcuffed? with all the excuses under the sun it doesn't seem very fair to me.

Pule' Carmel

Sep 20th 2012, 16:00

I did not really think that biting during arguments is still applied!

Last week I had an argument at the university member, as he insulted and said that I claim abilities under false pretences so this morning I pinned on the board Photographs and a written article on the Times of Malta that I was the first person to build a Modern composite plane at the University which was to fly from Malta to America. This articel appears in the Times Wednesday, 22, May 1996.

All the insults came so close even as close to my ears where the opponent whispered the insults and for a minute I thought that he was going to bite my ears off. As I am used to debating rather than biting I retreated back, where I could have taken a bite as seems to have happened in this sorrowful case of soldiers and immigrants. I felt I lost the this biting game as I am so used to debating an issue rather than biting it our with teeth or offensive vocabulary, by a university member of staff.

Come to think of this, I would say that biting is natural when the mind becomes bankrupt of things to say in a logical manner as the guilt in us do not permit you to see clear and we return to an animal state. I suppose it is expected even when an educated man is cornered.

They say that if domesticated dogs are left in the open for four weeks, they resume totheir primitice manners, including biting for survival and not just eating, ears and lips are the first things to aim at!

I prefer debating and retreating before it comes to biting with teeth and voculbalry as all this becomes a sign of a bankrupt mind.

shara Gauci

Sep 20th 2012, 15:44

No soldier or police officer on his duty are there to be bitten, To stop an aggressor you have to use force, and that what they did, i am sure that there intention was not to kill, WELL AFTER ALL IF IT WAS ME I WOULD REACT THE SAME

Mr Daniel Jones

Sep 20th 2012, 15:34

They handcuffed his hands and used a second pair of cuffs to immobilise his feet.

All those of you saying that you would have kicked him if he had bitten you now ask yourself, did the biting start before or after the beating started. We could ask the victim if he hadn't been kicked to death.

A.Felex Busuttil

Sep 20th 2012, 15:31

But how can it be that people trained in the armed forces allow a man , ordinary man to bite 31 and another 8 ? these are trained personal. they were 2 against one, he had bites caused by the army staff on his face. But are these really trained to control a detention center?

Mr Daniel Jones

Sep 20th 2012, 15:30

One question, was Mr Kamara handcuffed? Because the answer to this makes all the difference. If he was being beaten then how else can he defend himself other than biting?

Also of note is the fact that he also suffered a number of bite marks.

Christian Pullicino

Sep 20th 2012, 15:13

How does a person manage to land 31 bites on 1 soldier? Something is not right here Who's training these guys?

john borg

Sep 20th 2012, 14:44

I will give 1 million euro if some one manages to bite a German soldier 31 times. Sorry 3 times.

Paul Zammit

Sep 20th 2012, 14:26

I have to agree with the rest here.. 31 bite marks are definitely indicative of a full-blown, all out attack .. if I was in his place, I would have reacted in some way .. WHATEVER WAY ...

Louise Vella

Sep 20th 2012, 14:12

Everyone has the right to self-defence.

M Caruana

Sep 20th 2012, 14:02

2 trained strong soldiers and 1 migrant - sorry I fail to see how the other soldier let their colleague get 31 bite marks. and 1 kick from one of them resulted in this man dying, the soldiers must be really strong!

Anthony Scicluna

Sep 20th 2012, 14:00

it all depends whether the bite marks were before or after the gentleman died.

Erin Ciantar

Sep 20th 2012, 13:59

Did anybody else read that Kamara had bite marks on his face caused by Cuschieri. Our detention services personnel need some serious training. There's no way they should need to resort to biting.

Joseph N. Attard

Sep 20th 2012, 13:56

It is for the courts to pass judgement, not for me. My only question is this: how can a soldier, presumably trained in self defence, allow anyone to bite him 31 times? Or even eight times? Indeed, would even the most docile person allow himself to be bitten repeatedly? May one ask what sort of training these soldiers have received, and how have they been trained to react?

Robert Piscopo

Sep 20th 2012, 13:53

Why are they being charged with murder? Isn't this a case of involuntary manslaughter?

G. Ellul

Sep 20th 2012, 13:37

31 bite marks and you don' react?
If that isn't self-defence....

Sarah Camilleri

Sep 20th 2012, 13:37

We know that if this person was a Maltese man, there would have been an immense public outcry and we'd wonder if Malta had gone back to the middle ages...

It is irrelevant who started or provoked this fight. What is clear is that when you treat a person like an animal, that person will behave like one.

I'm sorry for all parties concerned, as probably this all happened at the heat of the moment and I don't imagine that anyone really intended to kill. But it definitely seems that the AFM has a lot of thinking and training to do.

Alexia Panzavecchia

Sep 20th 2012, 13:32

By the way in all 31+8= 39 bite marks Good Lord!!!!!

Charles Zammit

Sep 20th 2012, 13:31

If that had been a dog that bit once it would have been put down , being bitten 31 times !!! what is one expected to do ? Give the biter a tit bit and a pat on the head ?

Neville Cutajar

Sep 20th 2012, 13:23

Would you kick a dog if it bites you ? Would you hit someone back if he hits you ? Or would you turn the other cheek ?

You have to modes of operating when assaulted. either hit back or run away from the aggression. These soldiers could not run away so there was only one available option left to meet violence with violence. The kick was intentional to stop the aggressor from perpetrating the violence not to kill him ! This is purely self defence , why did it come to this I don't know. But since our governments are puppets of criticism we have to appear to be doing something.

Albert Farrugia

Sep 20th 2012, 13:20

..so...many of those posting here claim that they would have killed anyone who dares bite them...no wonder murders are increasing in this island!

Pippo De Marco

Sep 20th 2012, 13:11

I echo what others have said.

Bite me once, maybe twice and I will be angry, but bite me 31 times and I wouldn't care if you were an illegal immigrant, a policeman, or even (or especially) a Prime Minister, you would certainly get a kick in the groin from me, and plenty more besides..

M. Zammit

Sep 20th 2012, 13:09

How about the police and soldiers be supplied with muzzles along with handcuffs... seems the trend is to bite... this is not the first case of officers being bitten!! And I'm not pulling anyone leg, this comment is intended seriously!

Keith Zerafa

Sep 20th 2012, 13:04

Mary Agius, the mother of murdered Malian Mamadou Kamara’s child, is planning to file a claim for compensation
Financial compensation will be sought from “the parties concerned”, including the Government as the entity responsible for the detention services, Ms Agius’s lawyers have told The Times
the plan is to ask the parties concerned, including the Government, to pay compensation

one question are our forces equipt enough or trained enough for this kind of cases? 31 bites on a man its not a joke

Christian Pullicino

Sep 20th 2012, 12:54

That's still no excuse to behave in the way they did. Soldiers are supposed to be trained for these kind of situations. If they are not capable to control a person without resorting to such brutality then I would suggest that they find another job.

Mark Anthony Caruana

Sep 20th 2012, 12:52

mmmm where the 31 bite marks done to attack the soldier or maybe as some sort of defence? - this may be hard to determine...

Jeffrey Mallia

Sep 20th 2012, 12:47

Did he deserve this brutal murder, because he escaped ?

Victor Pulis

Sep 20th 2012, 12:44

31 bitw marks on Cuschieri,8 on dimech's body and a number of bite marks on Kamara! Are we talking of three men or a dog fight?

stephen koludrovic

Sep 20th 2012, 12:37

One would assume that the bite marks were done before he was kicked in the groin.

Dennis Zammit

Sep 20th 2012, 12:36

If any one would have bit me even half the amount mentioned, he would surely have got the same effect from me . . . a kick in that place.

As I said . . . ANYONE

Maryann Borg

Sep 20th 2012, 12:24

What a shame that soldiers are not better trained to take care of these situations without having to resort to such brutality! The fight in which all concerned were involved should never have occurred.

S. Camilleri

Sep 20th 2012, 12:19

31 Bite Marks!!!!!! And you expect the so called 'accused' not to react?? I'd have done the same and possibly more when faced with such acts!

M Borg

Sep 20th 2012, 12:14

Well 31 bite marks on one of the accused is no joke

Geoffrey Chapman

Sep 20th 2012, 11:26

Given this evidence, let justice be done!