Five Paceville bouncers were charged in court today with injuring a Chilean student during a fight last Thursday.
The men, Christopher Caruana, 29, from St Julian’s, Luciano Galea, 39, from Valletta, Anthony Portelli, 39, from St Pauls Bay, Stephen Fenech, 40 from Fgura and Emanuel Bonello, 46, from Attard are pleading not guilty to slightly injuring, Bastian Vasquez.
They are also pleading not guilty to breaching the public peace and operating without licences.
Police Inspector Trevor Micallef said that witnesses were shown an “album” of all bouncers in Paceville from which the five were identified.
He could that from CCTV footage of the fight none of the accused could be positively identified.
Taking the witness stand, Mr Vasquez said that all he could remember was walking through Paceville, the sound of screaming and the sound of an ambulance.
From the testimony of his sister, Francisca and his friends, Diego Santos and his sister Sophia and Marina Parau, it emerged that the fight began when the group saw two women savagely fighting each other outside a nightclub.
At one point, Sophie Santos began recording the incident on her mobile phone which one of the women took offence at and a bouncer intervened to take the phone.
During cross examination, Dr Azzopardi alluded to the fact that procedure was not followed by the police when showing the witnesses photos of the accused.
He pointed out that the photos were shown to all the witnesses at once and neither were the photos signed by the witnesses as was standard procedure.
The victim’s sister, Francisca, said that there were about six bouncers beating her brother on the floor. When she tried to stop them someone sprayed pepper spray into her eyes and mouth at which point she couldn’t breathe or see. When the effect wore off, she saw her brother lying in a pool.
She then identified two of the accused, Mr Portelli and Mr Caruana as the ones involved in the fight, but then admitted to not having recognised them in the photo album.
Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi representing four of the accused, asked why she only recognised them now and Ms Vasquez said that she recalled their body shape, adding a little later that she also recognised their faces.
She then said that she chose them because they stood out. When asked to elaborate, she said that they are bigger and taller than the rest of the men, who have a similar stature.
Magistrate Gabriella Vella granted bail to the accused against a personal guarantee of €500 each.
The case continues.