A court is to decree on a request for bail made for three individuals who were charged after they made Facebook posts cheering on a man who ran over and nearly killed a police officer.
Kylie Cutajar, 21, from St Venera, Ritmark Borg, 28, from Paola and Josef D'Amato, 24 from Marsa pleaded not guilty to the charges are pleading not guilty to charges of publicly inciting persons to commit a crime and misuse of electronic communications equipment in connection with Facebook comments they left on news articles about PC Simon Schembri who was left fighting for his life and had a limb amputated after a young motorist ran him over.
Inspector Joseph Busuttil and John Spiteri took the stand, telling magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit how the police had received a number of internal and external complaints about a conversation involving the three accused.
Lawyer Franco Debono, who took up the defence of two of the accused in today's sitting, asked the police to name the complainants, but the witnesses did not have the information to hand, promising to bring it in the next sitting instead.
"With your oath, tell everybody here who made the criminal complaint," asked Debono as the seating became more heated.
Inspector Busuttil explained that the victim's family had told his lawyer to instruct the police to act against the three and anyone else who made similar comments.
"I don't believe there is a need for a criminal complaint but rest assured that there are a lot of officers who want to," Inspector Spiteri said.
"I don't want all the weight of the country's crime to be placed on these three people," Debono submitted.
"Of the thousands of insults and negative comments made against Liam Debono, how many have you felt the need to prosecute?" asked the lawyer. The prosecution replied that they were not informed of any of them. Nobody had asked them to prosecute people who made any comments about Liam Debono.
Inspector Spiteri explained that the police had asked the accused if they had been threatened, but they didn't want to reveal what was said. "If we get information we will prosecute them too," said Spiteri. He invited the lawyer to pass it on. "Rest assured that not enough space in Corradino for all the people," was the reply.
The defence made submissions on bail this afternoon, after which the court announced that it would deliver a decree from chambers, most likely on Wednesday.
from The Malta Independent https://ift.tt/2sgYGhn
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