Three involved in fight sent to jail

Three men, who last Friday were found guilty of involvement in a fight in which two people were injured, were yesterday sentenced to jail terms ranging from three months to a year.

Keith Caruana, 26, was jailed for a year after jurors found him not guilty of the attempted murder of Emanuel Farrugia but guilty of slightly injuring him with a pointed instrument on March 11, 2001.

Caruana was unanimously cleared of seriously injuring Alfred Cardona but found guilty of resisting arrest by seven votes to two.

Anthony Joseph Portelli, 30, was jailed for eight months after being found guilty, by six votes to three, of being involved in a fight in which Cardona suffered serious injuries and of slightly injuring Farrugia.

He was cleared of complicity in the attempted murder of Farrugia, by seven votes to two, and of grievously injuring Cardona, by six votes to three.

David Calleja, 39, was jailed for three months after jurors found him guilty of slightly injuring Cardona, by a 6-3 vote, but cleared him of seriously injuring him.

Calleja was unanimously found not guilty of slightly injuring Farrugia and disobeying police but unanimously found guilty of relapsing.

Finally, a fourth co-accused, Godwin Vella, 31, was cleared of all charges brought against him when jurors found him not guilty of injuring Farrugia by seven votes to two.

After noting the verdict, Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono took the submissions made by the defence and the prosecution into consideration.

In a 16-page judgment, the judge noted that the jurors' verdict reflected that Portelli had participated in a fight in which Cardona suffered very serious injuries and that Portelli was guilty of injuring Farrugia, an act which, it resulted, had sparked off the fight. The verdict showed that Caruana had made use of a pointed instrument when he injured Farrugia, even though slightly, and that he had resisted and attacked the police when they tried to arrest him.

The judge noted that the crime of resisting arrest, which seemed to become more common, was a serious one. The police, he said, should be backed up by the courts when they were assaulted or inhibited from carrying out their duty.

Mr Justice Galea Debono referred to submissions made by the defence regarding the verdicts, where the jurors opted for the minimum level of guilt out of four or five possibilities.

It is obviously possible, he explained, that the jurors who voted in the minority could have done so because they did not agree that the accused was to be found guilty of the lesser alternative because they might have thought he should be found guilty of the more serious alternative.

On looking at the updated criminal records of the three men he noted that Calleja's first conviction dated back to 1982 when he was found guilty of breaching the peace.

In 1985 he was then convicted of a spate of thefts and traffic offences among other things for which he was put on probation for three years.

But the time he spent on probation did not seem to have had an effect on him as in 1988 he committed a very serious offence. He had been jailed for seven years and six months for seriously injuring a woman, which injuries resulted in death, when he shot her.

Portelli, the judge noted, had two convictions on his criminal record which included offences such as dangerous driving and breaching the peace, for which he had been conditionally discharged.

Caruana had been conditionally discharged for the possession of heroin, cocaine and cannabis in 1995 and some time later was fined Lm250 for driving without a licence.

He had also been convicted of disobeying police and breaching VAT regulations and for the possession of cannabis. The opportunities given to him by the court and a traffic accident he was involved in in 1996 did not tame his criminal tendency.

The judge cited case law which stated that when the crime involved violence directed at people the punishment should be imprisonment, effective immediately.

The scope of punishments was to serve as a deterrent and transmit a message that crimes involving physical violence will lead to imprisonment.

Seniour Counsel to the Republic Dr Mark Said prosecuted. Dr Anglu Farrugia appeared for Caruana, Dr Edward Gatt appeared for Portelli and Dr Martin Fenech appeared for Calleja and Vella.