Nicola Romano

Two Nigerian friends who assaulted and injured a 72-year-old shopkeeper after his dog bit their friend’s child were conditionally discharged for three years after paying to repair his dentures.

Vivian Asowata, 35, who is living in Italy, and Beneth Belonwu, 35, from Msida, admitted causing serious injury to Nicola Romano, damaging his shop door and breaching the peace.

The heated argument last Monday, which turned into a violent brawl, happened after Ms Asowata and Mr Belonwu walked into the shop complaining that Mr Romano’s dog had bitten their friend’s child.

The row quickly escalated with the two men physically fighting on the floor as Ms Asowata hit the victim with a plastic bucket. In a police statement, Ms Asowata said she was walking along the pavement near the Cinque Stelle Supermarket with her own baby and the friend’s child, named Dennis, when the dog came up from behind them and bit one of the child’s hands.

Ms Asowata said she began to shout and the dog left before she asked who the owner was. People in the street said Mr Romano was the owner but when she told Mr Romano what happened he blamed them for approaching the animal.

He then told her to leave but she refused and told him to call an ambulance or the police but he began shouting at her so she left to call the boy’s mother. A woman tried to help the boy and offer to medicate the wound but she refused the help and insisted on an ambulance.

At one point Mr Romano called her “black s*** and insulted her in Italian.

She said that he also pushed her and in retaliation when he was fighting with Mr Belonwu on the floor she hit him with a bucket.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit handed down a three-year conditional discharge after noting how they had paid Mr Romano €650 to repair his dentures and to fix the shop door. Lawyer Dean Hili represented Mr Asowata and Mr Belonwu.

Mr Romano hit the headlines in April 2009 after he found the badly-charred body of his 20-year-old son in the furnace of his workshop, round the corner from his Buġibba house.

It was later discovered that nails had been hammered into the young man’s head. The murder remains unsolved.