A man has been charged with seriously injuring a tourist who pushed him during an argument that ensued after a traffic collision at the beginning of his holiday in Malta.

The tourist had only been in Malta for 90 minutes when he was allegedly punched in the left eye by Owen Cremona, 25, from Tarxien, following a collision in Luqa.

Police Inspector Paul Camilleri told Magistrate Kevan Azzopardi that the Danish tourist was driving along Triq il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa on March 10 when he was involved in a collision with a car driven by the defendant’s father. The two emerged from their cars and the tourist was said to have pushed the other motorist.

That was when Cremona’s girlfriend called her boyfriend to tell him what had happened and he was on site within no time.

Upon arrival, the tourist tried pushing Cremona who allegedly retaliated by punching him in the eye, causing him grievous injuries, the court heard.

Cremona is pleading not guilty.

During submissions, defence counsel Franco Debono noted how the police chose to arraign a suspect using rarely-used urgent summons instead of under arrest in a case where two foreign witnesses had to leave the island in a few days.

In such cases, the police usually arraign the suspect under arrest to be able to urgently hear the witnesses, often foreigners, who would be leaving the country.

Debono said this was the correct procedure to adopt when the only reason to arraign under arrest was because witnesses were soon leaving the island.

He said it was unfair to arraign a person under arrest in such circumstances when the law provided an alternative procedure - that of urgent summons - which reached the same purpose without unnecessarily stifling fundamental freedoms.

The case continues. Lawyer Adreana Zammit was also defence counsel.