The son of a man killed in the Qbajjar car park in 2013 yesterday recalled how the car that hit his father “shuddered” as it crushed him, like it was going over a sleeping policeman.
“In this case it was my father,” said Matthew Spiteri during the trial of 67-year-old Gerald Galea, who is charged with the attempted murder of Mr Spiteri and with murdering his father John.
It was the first time that Mr Spiteri, a father of two, has testified in the case. He told jurors that he used to operate a kiosk with his late father at the Qbajjar car park but now worked as a blacksmith.
He said that on the day of the killing, he and his father had gone to attach the kiosk’s temporary electricity meter at around 3pm.
He took an axe from the back of the truck to clean up the site, looking for a hole for the electrode.
At that point Mr Galea arrived in his SUV, a grey Terios. “He came in aggressively, not like a normal person coming to park.”
Galea told them: “I’ve noted your number plate and I’m going to the police. Why did you cut down that tree, isn’t it enough to set up here?”
Mr Spiteri said his father told him to take note of Galea’s number plate as Mr Galea was shouting and hurling insults at them.
“I looked up and I saw that my dad had punched Galea. My dad was also bleeding from the left side of his lip. I told him [dad] ‘let him leave’.”
“I told Galea ‘get out, what are you doing here?’ He stepped on the gas, engine revved to the maximum...pulled away, almost knocked me over. Then he stopped, engine still screaming. He drove aggressively towards me, I zigzagged to get out of his way, he was shouting at my dad ‘iwa Ġann, iwa Ġann, issa naraw Ġann’” (“Yeah John, we’ll see John”).
Mr Spiteri added: “Galea didn’t brake like someone else would, he kept the gas pedal depressed. I heard ‘ploomm ploomm’ as my father was crushed under the car…”
“The car shuddered like it was going over a sleeping policeman, in this case it was my father. Then he carried on turning in my direction, but he didn’t maintain the same speed as when he had run over my father… [the car was travelling] slowly, but the engine was still revved, making a lot of noise, and he came straight at me.”
The witness said he dodged at the last moment and punched Mr Spiteri.
The judge asked him whether his father had hit the car’s bonnet. “Yes he was on the bonnet. The rest of his body was on the front grille and headlamp and his legs on the ground.”
After running over the man, the car performed a U-turn to run him over, he said.
Asked if the tyres had screeched during the turn, the witness said he recalled hearing the “screaming tyres and engine revving. My father getting crushed.”
The car had come at him at “a fast walking pace” he said. “He was coming straight at me, not at the same speed... I moved to the left and grabbed the pillar.”
Lawyers Kevin Valletta and Giannella Busuttil from the Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting. Galea is being defended by lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jason Azzopardi. Lawyer Joe Giglio is appearing as parte civile for the Spiteri family.
The trial continues.