Youth, 21, alleges being savagely beaten by police officers inside St Julian’s police station
Karl Stagno-Navarra
A 21 year-old youth from Rabat is insisting for justice to be made after months of delay into the investigation of his alleged beating inside the St Julian’s police station last March.
Trevor Ciangura claims to have been brutally kicked and punched by police officers inside the St Julian’s station yard, while the duty sergeant stood in the main doorway, allegedly to block anybody from entering the station while the beating was taking place.
The youth claims to have always cooperated with the police given that his brothers are in the police and army corps, and was always educated to respect orders.
Ciangura says that at 2:30am while out clubbing in St Julian’s back in March, he met a friend of his being escorted by police in Spinola Bay. He noticed his friend had been punched in the eye and injured.
Ciangura says he joined in the search for his friend’s aggressors, and personally apprehended one of them while giving chase.
As he was leading him to the police station, to hand him over to the police officers, Ciangura claims that as he approached the station, a well-built police officer came running out and grabbed him by the neck and squeezed him, insisting to let the other man go.
“He pulled me into the station while he kept squeezing at my throat and slammed me against a wall, while all I did was try to remove his hand because he was suffocating me,” Ciangura said.
He went on to add that the police Sergeant PS1492 Joseph Pace, who was on duty inside the station, winked to his subordinate and remarked, “itfgħuh f’tas-soltu…” (throw him in the usual place…).
In that specific moment, Trevor Ciangura claims he was violently punched into the yard at the back of the station and fell onto the metal structure of a broken bench, impacting his side with the protruding metal.
Once down, Cianguara claims to have been repeatedly kicked and punched, while the Sergeant just stood in the main door to the station, at times looking back “to make sure people outside don’t see what was happening,” the victim told MaltaToday.
Coughing up blood and now in severe pain, Trevor Ciangura said he insisted to be seen by a doctor, but this request was denied for a couple of hours, until his brother and other family members arrived at the station and had him released to take him to be medically checked.
Ciangura filed an official complaint to the Police Internal Investigations who initiated an investigation.
But months have passed and so far nothing has been done to discipline the officers involved.
“Months have passed since this incident and I still suffer from the consequences of the violent beating, especially in my back,” Ciangura told MaltaToday, adding that it was high time for the investigations to be concluded and a decision taken on what is to happen to the officers involved.
Replying to questions forwarded by this paper a police spokesman said that investigations are “still ongoing”, however they are in their final stages.
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