Lawyers defending five people accused of assaulting police officers in Ħamrun told court on Thursday that a missing bodycam worn by one of the policemen was “crucial” in shedding light on what precipitated the brawl.

The lawyers are insisting two brothers who assaulted the officers were provoked. 

That missing bodycam had been flagged by the prosecution when brothers Kurt and Elton Borg and three other defendants in the case were charged last month following the violent incident on St Joseph High Street on September 21. 

At Monday’s first hearing, one of the two constables involved in the brawl, Clive Mallia, said that when the altercation escalated into physical violence, he spotted a woman picking up a bodycam from the ground. 

She handed it to him and he gave it to his colleague, Aidan Demicoli, who attached it to his uniform. 

But as the brawl continued, that bodycam somehow “got lost” and had not been retrieved to date. 

When the proceedings continued on Thursday, Demicoli confirmed under cross-examination he had been wearing the bodycam while on the beat with his colleague.

When the young officers first came across Kurt’s car parked on double yellow lines and at a blind spot, neither of them had their cameras activated. 

Kurt called out from the opposite side of the street: “That car is mine. I’m removing it, sir,” recalled the witness. 

His colleague, Mallia, quipped back: “Did you have to spot us to remove it?"

When the car owner approached, Mallia asked him to produce his driving licence to make sure he was eligible to drive. 

Kurt complied, crossing the road to fetch his wallet. 

It was at that stage of the encounter that Mallia switched on his bodycam, automatically activating his bodycam too, recalled Demicoli. 

That bodycam had most likely captured the next stage in the officers’ interaction with Kurt and his brother, Elton, who joined the discussion.

Demicoli’s camera had likely filmed his colleague’s verbal exchange and gestures which were not captured in the footage recorded by Mallia’s bodycam. 

That footage, preserved by investigators and aired in court several times during the officers’ testimonies, did not appear to show the initial stages of the verbal exchange.

And the first few seconds of the footage lacked audio. 

Missing camera

On Thursday, Demicoli confirmed he had been wearing his camera which fell off when the words gave way to blows and physical violence.

His colleague retrieved it and gave it back to him. He attached it to the magnetic clip on his uniform but it fell off again. He had not seen it since. 

In light of that testimony and the evidence that emerged so far, the defence minuted that the missing bodycam likely recorded events that were “essential, crucial and fundamental” not only to the defence but also in the search for truth. 

That footage could shed “very important light on who and how the incident was precipitated,” said lawyer Franco Debono, dictating a note on behalf of all the defence teams. 

For that reason, they called upon the investigative authorities to “make the greatest effort to find this bodycam in the supreme interests of the administration of justice and the search for truth”. 

Questions to the witness focused on the vulgar manner wherein his colleague had addressed Kurt and Elton when the situation was still apparently calm.

'My colleague will have to answer '

Why did Mallia have to address Kurt sarcastically, telling him “Bloody hell, you’re such a good lawyer?”asked Debono. 

“I wasn’t the one who said those words,” Demicoli promptly replied. 

“Is it acceptable for you as police officers to utter such words?” pressed the lawyer. 

“No, it’s not. Now he [Mallia] will have to answer for that…Those were not the kind of words I would use,” said the officer. 

However, he insisted that Kurt’s attitude was “aggressive”, adding he had “snatched” his driving licence out of his colleague’s hand when the officer handed it back to him “in a gentle manner”.

Moreover, it was not acceptable “to step into an officer’s personal space”, and that was what Borg did, insisted the witness. 

Under further questioning, Demicoli confirmed that his colleague had repeated Elton’s words.  “Wasn’t that making fun of him,” asked Debono. 

“He was repeating… I don’t know why he did that. I didn’t do that.”

Elton had also stepped onto his colleague’s foot. 

“Didn’t he apologise right afterwards?”

“Although he apologised, we still got the beating,” retorted the witness. 

Taser gun, pepper spray

Demicoli later insisted that he had only fired his taser gun once, emitting two probes. 

His intention was to target Kurt who appeared “intent to harm his colleague.” 

When faced with the Standard Operating Procedure on the use of taser weapons, the witness explained that he had not followed the book and called out a warning before firing because there was “danger of life”. 

And that was one of the circumstances when the taser could be fired without warning. 

He insisted that at that moment he saw his colleague being attacked by the Borg brothers and Redeimon Aquilina, one of the other defendants. Somehow it was Aquilina who was hit instead. 

Later in the brawl, when he saw “the group approaching [him]” Demicoli said he resorted to pepper spray. 

“Obviously, I had already been punched at that stage.” 

As the four-hour session drew to a close, each lawyer made submissions on bail. 

Lawyer Mario Mifsud argued that Aquilina had been assisting the officers in breaking up the argument and then ended up being “mistakenly” tasered. 

Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi highlighted the fact that the doctors’ testimonies appeared to indicate that the victims’ injuries were slight.

Erika Borg was a mother with an untainted criminal record and had a supportive family who were willing to step in to guarantee her bail, argued Azzopardi.

The other defendants were all “family men” in business and never had any brushes with the law. 

All had strong ties in Malta, argued lawyer Matthew Xuereb.

And all were presumed innocent, added lawyer Charles Mercieca, stressing that that was the rule.

“What is the benefit of keeping them under arrest?” 

Magistrate Monica Vella said that bail decrees would be delivered in chambers. 

The case continues. 

The defendants were represented by lawyers Arthur Azzopardi, Franco Debono, Jacob Magri, Charles Mercieca, Matthew Xuereb, Mario Mifsud and Nicholas Mifsud. 

AG lawyer Jennifer Polidano and Inspector Elisia Scicluna prosecuted.

Lawyer Herman Mula appeared parte civile. Inspector Warren Galea represented the police commissioner. Magistrate Monica Vella is presiding over the case.