Updated | Eyewitness stands by court testimony on GRTU incident

A witness who recanted her original statement to police and the court in the compilation of evidence against Sandro Chetcuti, accused of assaulting GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia, has stood by her testimony in court.

"I stand by what I told the court and I will not be intimated in saying otherwise," witness Sylvia Gauci, a former employee at GRTU, told MaltaToday after the Chamber of SMEs issued a statement in which they categorically denied having held a meeting in which instructions were given to witnesses on what to tell police interrogators.

The GRTU denial comes in the wake of the testimony by Gauci, who told a court last week that she was instructed by unnamed GRTU officials and even by Vince Farrugia via SMS, on what to tell police interrogators of the incident.

In a statement, the GRTU's executive council said police officers who arrived on the scene at the GRTU offices where Sandro Chetcuti assaulted Farrugia, on 11 March 2010, had taken statements from the people present during the incident. "The police arrived a few minutes after the incident and evidence was collected immediately... no evidence was influenced in any way. Everybody, including Sylvia Gauci, made their statements to the police immediately after the attack took place."

The GRTU council has claimed that - contrary to what Gauci told the court in her second testimony - there was no time to influence what she told police. "GRTU's officials categorically deny that a meeting was held in which witnesses were instructed on what to say, and we reserve the right to take the necessary steps to safeguard our good name."

There was no denial of an SMS Farrugia sent to Gauci, formerly an elected member of the GRTU executive council, before taking up the position of executive secretary at the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development.

In a meeting held on Monday, the executive council expressed its support to its own members - president Paul Abela, vice-president Philip Fenech, and the GRTU's Joe Attard - for their work at the service of Maltese small business.

GRTU employee Sylvia Gauci told the court in the compilation of evidence aginast Sandro Chetcuti, who is charged with the grievous bodily harm of Farrugia, that she had lied under oath when she told police and then the court that she saw Chetcuti tell Vince Farrugia he wanted to kill him.

Gauci changed her version of events when she was testifying in court for the second time during the compilation of evidence against former GRTU official Sandro Chetcuti, charged with the assault on GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia of 11 March 2010.

Gauci, who was present at the GRTU offices when Farrugia was assaulted by Chetcuti, said she "did not want to lie to the court", and testified that before going to the police station, the employees at GRTU were gathered and instructed on what they should tell police officers under interrogation.

She alleged that Abela and Fenech were also in the meeting during which employees were instructed on what they should tell police officers.

Gauci also confirmed an SMS presented in court which shows she was instructed by Vince Farrugia to tell police that Chetcuti wanted to "kill" him during the assault, confirming the contents of the 19 March SMS:

"Re Wednesday, when you came in you saw him looking vicious and ready to butt my head with his. Your eyes' message which I read was 'watch it' and your eyes showed terror. That's what I'll say. And as he hit me you heard him say repeatedly 'noqtlok, noqtlok' (I'll kill you...) That's the truth. I wake up in the night hearing those words in his hoarse voice laud [sic] in my eyes. We must all hammer this point."

"I saw Vince Farrugia on the floor... and Sandro Chetcuti was at the back [of the boardroom]. I didn't see him hitting Vince," Gauci told the court Monday, confirming that she had not witnessed the assault itself.

Chetcuti was originally charged with attempted murder before the prosecution downgraded the gravity of the accusations to GBH.