Man claims police beating in 2006 restaurant ruckus

The wife of Joseph Azzopardi, 43 from Santa Lucia, who stands accused of assaulting police officers back in 2006, said he was hit over the head with a revolver by a police officer.

Sharon Azzopardi was testifying in the arraignment of her husband, where she claimed that he was beaten senseless by his captors and that she was pushed away by the officers and also insulted.

Azzopardi claimed that the police beating lasted a number of minutes, after which she was told to drive behind the police car that took her husband to the police headquarters. She was not allowed inside the depot but then she saw officers escorting her husband out of the depot, and he was later taken to the Floriana polyclinic and finally to Mater Dei Hospital.

Taking the witness stand, Azzopardi told the court that he was having dinner at a restaurant near Hagar Qim, in Zurrieq, when an argument erupted on another table, with bottles being thrown about. "I asked the people to stop the argument especially as there were children in the room," he said, and that as he banged the table he failed to realise that his bracelet had come undone.

After having left the restaurant as the situation escalated, Azzopardi realised he had lost his bracelet and returned to the restaurant to retrieve it.

Finding police officers on the spot, a witness pointed to Azzopardi as having started the fight, and police officers surrounded him. Azzopardi claimed he was beaten, handcuffed on the ground, and hit repeatedly as a police sergeant stood a few metres away from the scene. He also claimed that only one police officer tried to stop the others from beating him, in the process ending up with injuries to his face as he tried to stop the ruckus.

"Hadn't I been strong enough they would have killed me," Azzopardi told Magistrate Marse-Anne Farrugia. He was later admitted to Mater Dei, suffering from grievous injuries as confirmed in a medical certificate presented in court.

Under cross-examination, Azzopardi said he had drunk one bottle of wine with his family, and that he left the restaurant because of the commotion instead of calling the police to the scene. Azzopardi claimed that his two children, then aged three and four years, "now fear the police and one child stutters due to the shock of the assault."

Police Inspector Carlos Cordina prosecuted while Dr Edward Gatt appeared for the defence.

The case was put off for November 15.