A man who was charged with attempted murder following a 2013 brawl at the Labour Party's Rabat club has been acquitted because it was not proven that the punches, which were thrown in self-defence, were the cause of the victim's injuries amidst the mayhem.

Kenneth Micallef, 29 from Dingli, had also been charged with causing the victim - Ivan Attard - grievous injuries and with breaching public peace.

The brawl had erupted after a political mass meeting in Naxxar. It seemed to have started after a woman stepped upon a billiard table and danced provocatively, flirting with and teasing a certain Christian Gauci.

The woman’s boyfriend, Alfio Attard, had attacked Mr Gauci. Other people joined the fray, including the victim and the accused. The victim raised a broken Heineken bottle and waved it in the accused’s face.

The accused, in turn, knocked the bottle out of his hand and struck him several times with an open palm.

Mr Attard had fallen over, but immediately got up on his feet again, at which point he was ushered out of the bar. The bar owner had called the police as the fight then spilled over into the street outside.

According to Police Inspector Sarah Magri, who led the prosecution together with Inspector Stephen Saliba, a number of witnesses had seen the accused, violently assault the victim.

However, the accused insisted that he was not the one to have kicked Mr Attard in the head while he was on the ground, pointing out that he had stayed inside the club, when the victim was taken outside and beaten up on the road.

The victim had told the court that he could not remember anything between going drinking at the club and then waking up in hospital.

In a detailed, 85-page judgment, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera held that the accused had acted in legitimate self-defence, after fearing being struck with a broken glass bottle.

Although the victim had fallen over inside the club, he had subsequently got back on his feet and was taken outside, in the absence of the accused.

This made the link between the blows delivered by the accused at the bar and the subsequent injuries all the more tenuous, the court held.

Mr Micallef was therefore cleared of all charges brought against him.