First Jose, now Manuel

We shall probably some day reach the point in Malta where we say to ourselves ‘I can’t believe that back in the dark ages we had criminal lawyers who were also legislators. What were we thinking?’

Only a few days ago the future minister for justice, Jose Herrera, told the court in defence of his client, a police officer in his 50s who stands accused of forcing himself sexually on his 11-year-old daughter, that this behaviour is not that serious in the sex-crime rankings, so he should not be held on remand.

Now we have Emmanuel Mallia, in his 60s the great white hope of the Labour Party who will almost certainly be a legislator this time next year, taking up the brief of a nightclub bouncer who stands accused of causing the death of a Sudanese refugee by punching and pushing him with such force that he fell, his skull cracking on impact.

This death caused outrage almost three years ago, and there was an anti-racist demonstration which was well attended. Suleiman Abubaker had already been subjected, a few months earlier, to violent and aggressive treatment by the police at the infamous Spinola Police Station, in full view of a crowd of onlookers.

When they protested at the way Abubaker was being treated – he was handcuffed in a prone position on the station floor to the legs of a bench – the station door was slammed closed in their faces, so that nobody could see what continued to take place behind it.

Emmanuel Mallia produced as a witness for the defence the notorious Frankie Grima, operator of several Paceville establishments including the seedy pole-and-lap-dancing place Steam, which was mentioned only last week in the trial of a white-slave trafficker (Steam, through its lawyer, denied its involvement).

Frankie Grima told the court that Abubaker was a known troublemaker and that he was involved in an incident in one of his bars.

What, then, should we say of Frankie Grima himself? Only two years ago, he was conditionally discharged and fined a token €50 when he was found guilty of violently resisting a police superintendent in an argument over smoking at one of his establishments, Plush.

This happened when the police officer told a Plush client to stop smoking on the premises, and Grima reacted by pushing the policeman.

In 1998, Frankie Grima was acquitted of the 1992 murder of Diego Farrugia, a Paceville protection money racketeer. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t kill him – he did, after firing several shots at him with some uber-type weapon he kept at his then bar, Bamboo, even chasing him out into the road to do so – but he was cleared on self-defence or similar.

So Frankie Grima makes a fine, impressive and credible witness for the defence, and Emmanuel Mallia did well in unearthing him.

I can’t recall whether Mallia was one of Frankie Grima’s defence lawyers in the 1990s murder trial. His ex-girlfriend and former law partner, the then Giannella Caruana Curran, certainly was.

This is the sort of thing on which Franco Debono never has an opinion….of course.

I quote from the report in The Times today:

NO REAL EVIDENCE AGAINST BOUNCER, SAYS HIS LAWYER

(…) The case revolves around an incident in May 2009 when 28-year-old Suleiman Abubaker, from Darfur, was thrown out of Footloose nightclub in Paceville and then allegedly pushed to the ground by Mr Deguara.

Mr Abubaker fell unconscious a few minutes later and within days was dead from a fractured skull.

Two Frenchmen, who had testified during the compilation of evidence, said they saw the accused first punch and then push the victim to the ground.

Dr Mallia held that in all probability his client did not punch and push the victim but only pushed him, as all the other evidence clearly stated.

There was no physical evidence on the body of the victim to even suggest that he had been hit in the face or anywhere else by a punch.

The lawyer also pointed out that the victim had not fallen down once but also a second time, this being an accident, and it could not be proven whether the injuries resulted from the first or the second fall. (…)