Migrant jailed for biting police officer

Judge Michael Mallia revoked a judgement acquitting Ismail Abubaker Garba of assaulting and injuring a police officer, found the detained migrant guilty as charged and imprisoned him for 8 months.

The incident happened on 24 March 2006 at Ta' Kandja Detention Centre. At around 3:45pm a riot broke out involving a number of detained migrants. A number of officers were assisting in containing the riot and returning the men to their quarters.

The accused was part of the rioting crowd. While returning to his quarters, the accused assaulted PC1478 Julian Grima and bit his arm and leg. The officer fell to the ground, hit his head, lost consciousness and had to be taken to hospital. Doctors certified him to have suffered slight injuries.

In 2012, the Criminal Court had acquitted Garba saying no proper method of identification was adopted by the police when identifying the accused as the person responsible for the charges brought against him. This was because no identification parade was carried out by the investigating officers.

Judge Michael Malli argued the first court did not give enough weight the identification of the accused by the victim and other officers on site.

"However when the police themselves are victims of crime, the identifying procedure must be the same as that for victims who are not in the police force", the court held.

In this case, eyewitnesses confirmed that it was the accused who inflicted injuries on Constable Grima. An identification parade is not the only way of identification and other means of identification have been accepted by the courts. As the accused was identified very soon after the incident,the Court of Appeal felt it should uphold the AG's appeal and accept the witnessing of the officers as reliable identification of the accused.

Judge Michael Mallia, revoked the acquittal and found Ismail Abubaker Garba guilty of assaulting and injuring a police officer. The migrant was jailed for 8 months.