Three men involved in a scuffle in Paceville on Wednesday night ended up in court on Thursday, with two of them being given a conditional discharge after a magistrate found that they had been trying to prevent a theft.

The other accused was the alleged thief. 

Muhanad Kaarshe Ahmed, 20, and Abdiqadir Mahamaud Ali, 19, who both live at Hal Far Open Centre, had been in the act of retraining the alleged thief, Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi, 22, a fellow Open Centre resident, when police arrived on the scene, the court was told. 

Inspector Trevor Micallef said the police were informed about the case at about 2.30am.

Policemen found the two alleged victims trying to restrain the other Somali man who had allegedly stolen a Samsung mobile phone, cash and personal documents that belonged to them.

The two victims of the robbery were accused of having inflicted slight injuries upon the alleged thief and breaching the peace. The alleged thief was separately charged with the aggravated theft, with having been drunk in public and breaching bail conditions.

In the light of the fact that the first two had been the victims of a theft, had fully cooperated with the police, had a clean criminal record and immediately admitted to the charges, the court, Magistrate Gabriella Vella conditionally them for six months.

The suspected thief, sporting a bloodied forehead and still wearing a blood-stained jacket, insisted on pleading not guilty.

He said that the other two had stolen the phone from an unidentified third party and had turned upon him when he spotted them hiding the stolen device. he said he was willing to lead the police to the hiding place.

The prosecution rebutted this account pointing out that almost 10 hours after the incident, no third party had reported the theft as was usually the case in Paceville when reports reached the police fast.

Deeming the man as lacking trustworthiness, Magistrate Vella turned down his request for bail.

Inspector Trevor Micallef prosecuted.

Lawyer Martin Fenech was defence counsel to the victims of the theft.

Lawyer Noel Bartolo was defence counsel to the alleged thief.