Three hours to reach guilty verdict in road rage case
Jurors took three hours to reach a guilty verdict in the trial of 39-year-old Luqa man, Stephen Pirotta, was late yesterday evening found guilty by a 7-2 margin of the attempted murder of David Azzopardi in a road rage case three years ago.
Jurors started deliberating at around 4.45 pm, and the chief juror read out the guilty verdict shortly after 8 pm.
The attempted murder charge on 28 September 2005 was the most serious one out of five presented by the Attorney-General during the trial.
The victim was stabbed in the chest as he sat in his car in Qormi after he protested that Pirotta had hit his car’s door mirror during overtaking.
He then tried to drive to St Luke’s Hospital but passed out in Hamrun and was taken to hospital following a call by his girlfriend, Lorraine Darmanin, in an ambulance where emergency surgery saved his life.
According to the bill of indictment, a medical report had showed that it was thanks to the intervention of the doctors that the victim was saved.
The accused had immediately admitted to stabbing the victim.
Before the incident he had remembered drinking around four beers and a bottle of wine.
As they argued, he saw the victim crouch down and his first thought was that he was going to grab a pistol. The convict then ran up to him and stabbed him before he could be attacked.
By the time we went to print yesterday evening, a judgement about the case had not been issued.
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