Three young Facebook users accused of posting hate comments against the police were granted bail on Wednesday after being held behind bars for 11 days.

The comments were posted a day after the hit and run incident targeting a traffic policeman.

Kylie Cutajar, 21, from St Venera, Ritmark Borg, 28, from Paola and Josef D’Amato, 24, from Marsa, had pleaded not guilty to the charges upon their arraignment.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit granted bail to Cutajar and D’Amato against a deposit of €300 and a personal guarantee of €5000 each. They are to sign the bail book three times weekly and observe a curfew between midnight and 7am.

Borg was granted bail under the same conditions but with a personal guarantee of €8,000 and no deposit.

All three were ordered not to communicate among themselves.

During Tuesday's first sitting for the compilation of evidence, Inspector Joseph Busuttil stressed that:  “One must understand that as soon as one presses ‘send’, the post is up.”  

“As an officer, I personally felt that I had to do something about this,” continued the inspector, with reference to the many requests that had come his way as soon as the offensive comments were shared on social media, prompting an outpouring of emotions by the public.

The court heard how the remarks had been uploaded by the three accused on May 16, a day after PC Simon Schembri had been the victim of a hit and run incident in Luqa, landing in a highly critical condition after being dragged over a distance of some 400 metres under a Mercedes driven by 17-year old Liam Debono, whose compilation kicked off on Monday.

The comments had been made in the course of a Facebook conversation between Kylie Cutajar and Ritmark Borg, while Josef D’Amato had commented over a post uploaded by a third party.

Wahda reverse, u ejja ha mmorru,” ran one of the comments by Ms Cutajar, who had first reacted to an online report regarding the hit and run incident. Mr Borg had allegedly continued the thread by saying that she was to go over twice just to make sure.

The other co-accused, Mr D’Amato, had allegedly posted that “at least one policeman should be run over every day” when commenting over a post tagged by a third party.

Several police officers approached the Vice Squad asking whether anything was to be done about these comments, prompting the prosecutors to press charges against the three alleged culprits for publicly inciting others to commit a crime and for misuse of electronic communications equipment.

In the course of Tuesday’s hearing it emerged that prosecution over such offences did not require any complaint by an injured party, with the prosecution insisting that there were several persons who had expressed the will to testify in the proceedings.

“In this case, the injured party is the entire police corps,” Inspector John Spiteri remarked.

Explaining the circumstances which led to the arrest and subsequent interrogation of the three alleged offenders, the prosecution pointed out that all three had been through some negative experience in the past involving the police.

The father of one of the accused had been killed in a traffic accident in Sicily and the police had failed to inform the family who discovered the harsh truth only too late, the Court was told.

Another had been charged in the past over some minor theft and had allegedly been manhandled by the police, the prosecution explained.

All three appeared to have a common design,” Inspector Busuttil concluded, adding that Ms Cutajar had offered no plausible explanation as to why she had posted her comments when asked under interrogation.

Mr Borg had allegedly admitted that his remarks had been senseless and that he had merely posted them to impress Ms Cutajar.

Mr D’Amato had told the police that he had been angry at the time on account of personal troubles and had just wanted to react to the third party post.

As lawyers for the accused made submissions on bail, it was stressed that all three had already spent days behind bars, when personal freedom was a fundamental right and not a concession to be granted by the court.

Besides there was no fear of absconding, the lawyers stressed, prompting the prosecution to rebut that proceedings were still at a premature stage and besides, two of the accused had allegedly tried to give the law the slip when they sensed that the police were on their tracks.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Amadeus Cachia were defence counsel to Mr D’Amato and Ms Cutajar as from the last sitting on Tuesday, the latter also being assisted by Dr Mark Refalo. Lawyer Joseph Brincat was defence counsel to Mr Borg.

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