Man damages police door over missing phone

A court has heard how a man who lost his mobile phone while drunk, had returned to a police station where he had been taken to sober up, and proceeded to cause damage, under the mistaken impression that the police had taken it.

Uzbek national Khabib Adizov, 29, who holds a Finnish residence permit, was arraigned before magistrate Jean Paul Grech on Monday, accused of criminal damage. Inspector Antonello Magri explained that Adizov had been stopped by RIU officers who observed that he was drunk. Unable to communicate with the man due to the language barrier, the officers took him to the Paola police station drunk tank.

By 11:15 pm, he had recovered sufficiently to remember how to speak English and had been allowed to leave the station.

But Adizov returned to the police station around 30 minutes later to collect his phone, thinking that he had left it there by mistake. After being told that it was not there, he had angrily punched a door, causing minor damage to it and was arrested close to midnight.

In court, Monday, through a Russian-language interpreter, Adizov told the court that his phone had been taken away by the police while he was being searched.

Inspector Antonello Magri told the court that the police did not have the device - and neither had Adizov, at the time when he had been arrested and searched at the Paola police station.

Adizov pleaded guilty to the charge of criminal damage which, the court was told, would cost some €27 to repair.

During submissions on punishment, Inspector Magri recommended a suspended sentence, as Adizov had cooperated with the police and was already booked to leave Malta on a flight to Riga, departing later this week.

Finding Adizov guilty as charged, the court sentenced him to six months in prison, which would be suspended for two years.

Lawyer Ingrid Zammit Young assisted the defendant as legal aid counsel.