Spinola Gardens mugging sees man handed over four years jail sentence

A 36-year-old man has been jailed for more than four years after being found guilty of mugging another man in St Julian's Spinola Gardens.

The victim testified that he had been accosted by the accused after leaving a St Julian’s party in the early hours of the morning in May last year.

The accused, Somali national Abidqani Omar Abdillah, accompanied by Barkat Ayanle, approached him and convinced him to accompany them to a secluded area in Spinola Gardens, where they assaulted him and stole his personal belongings.

Abdillah held his arms behind his back, while Ayanle stole his mobile phone and wallet. Ayanle kicked the victim and hit him with a piece of wood. The victim recalled falling to the ground, hitting his head and bleeding.

The man said the pair stole €30 in cash, his Samsung mobile phone, which he bought in India for 25,000 Rupees, and his bank cards.

The victim then went to St Julian’s Police Station to file a report, before being taken to Mater Dei Hospital, where he was treated for slight injuries.

He was asked to pay €300 for his medical expenses, which he said he could not afford due to having just fallen victim to theft.

The victim returned home to rest before heading back to St Julian’s with police officers, during which visit he identified Abdillah.

Police inspector Roderick Attard told the court that they found the victim’s Tallinja card and BNF bank card on Abdillah at the time of his arrest.

The accused’s mobile phone had no password, and the police found a photo of the victim’s mobile phone on the device. Abdillah claimed that his friend gave him the phone in his statement to the police.

Accomplice arrested

The police arrested Ayanle the following month. He pleaded guilty in the proceedings against him and was handed an effective prison term. 

Ayanle took the witness stand and testified that he was serving a prison term. He recognised the victim and told the court that he was the one to hit the man while the accused escaped with the mobile phone. 

The accused also took the stand, claiming he had found the victim and Ayanle arguing, and had intervened to stop the fight. He also claimed that the victim had asked him to acquire cannabis for him. 

The court observed that from Ayanle’s version of events it emerged that the witness and the accused had planned the theft while in the garden, and had seen the victim’s mobile phone. For the court, this was direct evidence that the pair acted together to execute the crime and had common design. 

The court held that the victim’s version was credible and closest to the truth, and corroborated by Ayanle’s account of the events.

Abdillah held the victim while Ayanle hit him, and the accused had made off with the victim’s mobile phone, the court observed. Later, Abdillah met Ayanle and passed on the victim’s mobile phone to be sold.

For the court, there was no doubt that the accused had helped Ayanle in the execution of the crime and was therefore an accomplice.

Charges

Abdillah was accused of aggravated theft and causing slight injuries to the victim. He was further charged with recidivism and living an idle and vagrant life.

In court, it emerged that the accused was unemployed. However, when considering the charge of living an idle and vagrant life, the court held it was not enough that the man was unemployed, and that one had to show he had made no real effort to find work.

“The provision is not there to punish unemployment, but an idle life which goes beyond being temporarily unemployed,” the court said, adding that it was not finding him guilty of the charge.

On the charge of recidivism, it emerged that in March 2020, the man received an eight-month prison term, while in August 2020, he was found guilty of a separate crime and received a three-year, six-month prison term.

Because five years had not passed between that and the latest case, the court found him guilty of recidivism.

In its considerations on punishment, the court observed that aggravated theft was punishable by a prison term of between two and five years, while causing slight injuries was punishable with a maximum two-year prison term or a fine.

However, since the man was also being found guilty of recidivism, the punishment should be increased by one decree, it said.

The court also considered that the man showed no remorse for his actions, and his criminal record, which showed 11 convictions over a decade.

Sentence

The court jailed the man for four years and six months.

He was ordered to pay €1,858.50 in court expenses.

Magistrate Ann Marie Thake presided.

AG lawyer Brendan Hewer prosecuted, assisted by police inspector Roderick Attard.

Lawyer Ingrid Zammit Young appeared for the accused.