A Sudanese immigrant who yesterday admitted in court to assaulting three police officers had himself been brutally beaten by a group of policemen while he was handcuffed and defenceless, eyewitnesses have told The Times.

"He was in the foetal position, handcuffed and the police were kicking him and slammed him against their van," eyewitness Rebecca Filletti told The Times.

The incident occurred in Paceville's main square in the early hours of Saturday morning in front of a large number of witnesses, even though hardly anyone did anything about it.

Ms Filletti approached the police officers to question their behaviour and was arrested.

"As soon as I started asking questions, they asked for my identification and my details... I said: Why? I did nothing wrong. I want to know why you are arresting this man because what you are doing is wrong. At that point they arrested me," she said.

Ms Filletti, who studies refugee law, had offered to assist the man. She was taken to the St Julians police station and was released only after her boyfriend and some other friends went to the station to see what was going on.

Her version of events was corroborated by Bernard Galea. "There is no way this would have happened had the guy been Maltese," he said, while stressing that the level of violence used was excessive.

He said the police kept hitting the man even though he was handcuffed and that he did not retaliate since he was outnumbered by five policemen.

Similarly, Ms Filletti said: "The man did not put up a fight. He merely lay on the ground crying and screaming for them to stop, saying he had done nothing wrong".

Questions were sent to the police for their version of the story yesterday but no response was received by the time of going to print.

The Home Affairs Ministry, however, was more forthcoming. "We will not tolerate any irresponsible behaviour by the police force but we need to corroborate these allegations so we would strongly encourage these eyewitnesses to file a report with the police internal affairs unit as soon as possible," Darryl Pace, a spokesman for the ministry said.

The man, 27-year-old Suleiman Ismail Abubaker, admitted in court to assaulting officers and damaging the police van yesterday and was handed down a 10-month jail term suspended for two years and fined €300.

The incident was sparked off by an argument he had with another man outside Burger King in Paceville at about 3.30 a.m. The eyewitnesses who spoke to The Times arrived on the scene when the police officers got involved but the second man was not seen by either of them.

A number of bystanders followed Mr Abubaker and Ms Filletti to the St Julians police station to demand information about the man who they felt was treated abusively. There they saw him handcuffed to a railing and later to a bench, sprawled on the floor with wrists bleeding, a gash on his arms, a bruised face and a swollen eye.

"Help me, help me, I promise I will never come to Paceville again," he was heard saying.

"He was treated like an animal, like a dog," Katrina Zammit Cuomo said, pointing out that the police shut the door of the station for about 15 minutes after the crowd that gathered dem-anding that the man be treated humanely.

The people who were at the station and who spoke to this newspaper claimed that the man was being treated inhumanely.

The same three police officers whom Mr Abubaker admitted he had assaulted made similar allegations in court yesterday against another migrant, Kaba Konate, 26, from the Ivory Coast - who also admitted that he had violently resisted them. He was given an eight-month jail term suspended for two years.

However, here too, an eyewitness account of an arrest in Paceville, which tallies with that of Mr Konate in terms of the time and place of arrest, suggests that the man was manhandled.

Matthew Caruana Galizia said he saw a Maltese and a black man arguing outside a club on St George's Road, Paceville at about midnight (the police said the incident took place at 12.35 a.m. in front of a club in the same road).

The dispute had not turned physical by then but seven policemen came running over the hill and went straight for the black man, knocked him down, "lifted him up like a sack of potatoes and threw him into a police van with no questions asked" while allowing the Maltese man to leave, said Mr Caruana Galizia, who was also part of the crowd that gathered outside the police station.

"Friday night was like a witch hunt. It was crazy. I was shocked," he said.

Neil Falzon, head of the UNHCR office in Malta, said he was aware of the case involving Mr Abubaker.

"I will be strongly advising people making such claims to file a report to the Police Commissioner.

"If the allegations are confirmed, I believe we are dealing with a very serious situation and I expect the authorities to take action and see to it that nothing like this happens again.

"Obviously, I cannot pass judgment for the time being but it is definitively worrying that we are getting so many of these reports."

He reported that just two days ago the UNHCR office received a similar report from a migrant who said he had an argument with a local and that the police arrested him without even questioning the other man.

"We strongly suggested that the man files a police report but he refused saying he was afraid because he works in the area," he said.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com, cperegin@timesofmalta.com