Officer testifies on stabbing incident

A Birkirkara shop owner tried to stab a tenant but was warded off by the tenant's wife in a mysterious incident between two people with no apparent history of arguments or problems, a police inspector told a court yesterday.

Inspector David Saliba said victim Mosé Calvanico told him he could not think why Manwel Bezzina would want to stab him when they had been talking and joking together only that morning and had never had any arguments.

He told the inspector that Bezzina came up to him out of the blue and brandished a knife in his direction.

The inspector testified in the compilation of evidence against Bezzina, 50, of Gharghur, who is pleading not guilty to trying to kill Calvanico in Birkirkara on Saturday at about noon and to seriously injuring him and his wife Rita Calvanico.

He is also charged with keeping and carrying a knife without a licence, breaching the peace and assaulting the Calvanico couple.

Inspector Saliba yesterday told how he learnt of a stabbing incident in Naxxar Road, Birkirkara, and went on site to find a lot of blood inside Bezzina's carpet shop.

Mobile squad police, who had arrived on the scene before him, handed him a penknife.

Inspector Saliba said he then spoke to Calvanico who told him he had been standing outside his shoe shop (across the road from the carpet shop) in the morning and Bezzina had threatened him at knifepoint but he did not think much of it because he put it down to one of Bezzina's jokes.

They had no ongoing arguments or problems and he knew Bezzina liked to joke, Inspector Saliba said Calvanico told him.

Later on that morning, he went to his shop again and waited outside while his wife closed the shop.

Bezzina came out of his shop and started threatening him and then went up to him and tried to stab him.

Inspector Saliba said Calvanico told him he had no idea why Bezzina would do that.

Meanwhile, a client in his shop told his wife what was happening and she came out and tried to push him.

She actually managed to push him towards the entrance of their shoe shop and Bezzina fell against some shelves but not before she tried to take his penknife and he accidentally hit Calvanico near the ear.

Bezzina then got up and scuttled across the road to his shop, throwing away the knife in the street. The client told his wife to pick up the knife from the street so that Bezzina would not be able to use it again if he came back.

Mosé Calvanico testified and explained how he had been waiting for his wife outside their shop in Naxxar Road when Bezzina ran up to him and tried to stab him.

His wife came out to try and calm him down and she eventually managed to push Bezzina and he fell to the ground. He then got up, threw away the knife and walked off.

When the police arrived on the scene, they found him asking Bezzina why he had attacked him and Bezzina had simply replied: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry".

Calvanico said he had previously had a good relationship with the defendant and they had been joking together only that morning.

He described Bezzina as a nice person but superstitious. Bezzina would spit on the ground outside his shop or throw nails on the floor of his (Calvanico's) shop.

Bezzina had also been to a fortune teller who told him he would marry a woman with the initials RC.

The initials corresponded to his wife's and Bezzina would come to their shop and sit there all day.

He often noted Bezzina staring at his wife but he never told him off even when he realised in which direction Bezzina was looking.

The case continues.

Bezzina was granted bail against a Lm3,000 deposit and a personal guarantee of Lm5,000. He was also bound not to approach the Naxxar Road area.

Police Inspectors David Saliba and Kevin Farrugia are prosecuting.

Dr Michael Sciriha appeared for Bezzina while Dr Edward Gatt represented the Calvanicos.