A family man who was badly beaten up in a heated argument with the police after an evening out with his wife and kids was cleared after a court declared that the prosecution’s evidence was riddled with inconsistencies.

Joseph Azzopardi, a 48-year-old Sta Lucia resident, had been returning home after a family meal at a Ħaġar Qim Restaurant on the evening of February 10, 2006, when the incident took place.

Earlier on that evening, the accused’s meal had allegedly been disrupted by an argument which broke out between other patrons at the restaurant, the court was told.

Banging his fist on the table in an attempt to break up the row and fearing for the safety of his own children, the accused had left the dining place without realising that his gold bracelet worth some Lm1,500 had come undone, the man later testified in court.

Discovering the loss, he had stopped a police car some 100 metres away from the restaurant, and asked the two officers to help him search for the lost jewellery at the restaurant.

It was then that the officers had allegedly turned upon him, punching and kicking him, hitting him on the head with a revolver and pinning him on the ground between their vehicle and the street wall before handcuffing him and taking him away under arrest.

The man ended up facing charges of falsely reported the officers for an offence which had not been committed. He was further accused of assaulting the officers, violently resisting arrest, using foul language, breaching the peace and disobeying orders.

The prosecution’s version of what had actually taken place that night 12 years ago, contrasted sharply with the accused’s own version.

One officer involved in the scuffle had testified that the accused had blocked their path as they were driving away from the restaurant, swearing at them and branding them “thieves” for having stolen his gold bracelet.

As the man turned away as though to fetch something from his car, the two officers got out of their car and it was then that the struggle broke out, the witness had recalled.

In the light of the two divergent versions, magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia observed that there was no doubt that the argument between the accused and the two policemen had escalated to the extent that “excessive force was used”.

The accused had ended up with serious facial injuries compatible with blows to the head, possibly with a hard object, whereas the officers had not suffered the slightest injury, the court observed.

There had also been a lack of consistency in the versions supplied by five officers called to testify, besides the fact that the one who had allegedly been “most arrogant and violent” in his handling of the accused, was never called to testify by the prosecution, the court noted.

On the basis of all evidence, the court concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and thus cleared the accused.

Inspector Carlos Cordina prosecuted. Lawyer Edward Gatt was defence counsel.

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