A man who wanted to die like the main character in Scarface was yesterday given a 12-year prison sentence for trying to play out his own version of the film during a dramatic shoot-out in Qormi eight years ago.
High on cocaine and vodka, Marco Pace, also known as Il-Pinzell, shot at the police as they planned to storm his house.
He carried a machine gun in one hand and a shotgun in the other, almost mimicking Al Pacino in the famous 1983 crime movie, which obsessed him.
Mr Pace was due to stand trial by jury but reached a plea bargain with the Attorney General two years after his close friend, Mario Vella, also known as In-Nanak, was jailed for seven years for being an accomplice.
Ex-partner said he wanted to die shooting police as they shot hims
Mr Pace admitted to the attempted murder of Police Sergeant George Farrugia on February 15, 2005, damaging property, the illegal possession of firearms, firing a gun in an inhabited area and threatening former Police Inspector Jeffrey Cilia.
He also admitted damaging a police cell after being arrested, by ripping a stainless steel sink off the wall and smashing it.
Mr Pace’s former partner, Yanika Abdilla, revealed that amid the chaos Mr Pace told her he wanted to die like Scarface, shooting police as they shot him.
Ms Abdilla said there was another woman in the house, Kelly Micallef, with whom Mr Pace had sex while she (Ms Abdilla) was locked in the kitchen.
Ms Micallef had received a conditional discharge for her involvement and was found dead at her father’s house in San Ġwann, surrounded by drug paraphernalia, in January 2009.
The day in question had started as any other – with the couple taking a vodka-and-cocaine breakfast with Mr Vella and Ms Micallef.
Mr Pace left the house, as usual, and returned with a supply of cocaine three hours later. At around 6.30pm Mr Pace’s mother, Giovanna, phoned her son but failed to say goodbye to him and he flew into a rage.
He marched to her house with a hammer to break the door down.
To make matters worse, his father was standing on the balcony and dropped a Heineken bottle into the street out of fear as he approached, Ms Abdilla said.
His anger reaching a new intensity, he fetched a shotgun from home, walked back to his parents’ house and shot the door, when his mother called the police.
He returned to his house again and after a stand-off lasting several hours and an exchange of gunfire, the police fired teargas into the building then stormed it, arresting its occupants.
Lawyers Giannella de Marco and Steve Tonna Lowell are representing Mr Pace.