Court jails violent man who set police cell alight

A man was jailed for four years yesterday after he was found guilty of trying to run over a policeman in front of Parliament, setting fire to his cell and attacking officers.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke heard that on November 15, 2000, Francis Cuschieri tried to park in Parliament Square when he was stopped by a policeman. After becoming agitated, Mr Cuschieri drove at an excessive speed towards the officer, stopping exactly in front of him. It took four officers to make him go into a police car that took him to the Valletta police station.

After shouting and screaming for quite a while, Mr Cuschieri calmed down but shortly there-after he burst into shouts of agony. When officers on duty went to check on him they realised that he had set fire to his cell and that he had extensive burns. Although Mr Cuschieri was injured he still managed to escape from custody but was caught shortly afterwards.

Mr Cuschieri was found guilty of attempting to seriously injure a policeman, attacking and threatening officers, breaching the public peace, damaging public property, setting fire to public property and disobeying police orders.

After taking into consideration the long list of charges brought against Mr Cuschieri, the court jailed him for four years and fined him €300.