David Joseph Gauci, one of the two men involved in last week’s violent fight in Birkirkara, was yesterday released from police custody under a personal guarantee of €5,000.
Gauci’s was held under arrest after he was charged with causing grievous bodily harm to a former police inspector who is his partner’s estranged husband. The decision was deemed unjust by his family.
Gauci’s partner and mother told The Malta Independent that Gauci was merely defending his partner in an ongoing case of domestic violence, from which the bloody flight in Birkirkara culminated.
Initially, sections of the media had reported that two men traded blows after a simple car crash near a popular supermarket. But the following day Gauci’s partner Michaela spoke to this newspaper, saying that her estranged husband – the former inspector – had subjected her to more than a decade of domestic violence and that the violent row was just the latest in a series of incidents.
She said her husband attacked her, in front of her children, as she headed towards her partner’s house, and that the former inspector later attacked her partner and tried to force his way into the Birkirkara home.
The former police officer was released on bail but Mr Gauci was kept in police custody.
The woman told this newspaper that she had often suffered physical abuse and provided pictures of a past episode where she ended up with a black eye and a bloody lip.
She also produced a u number of threatening SMSs she had received from the former inspector, with whom is going through separation proceedings. In the messages he says he has made it his mission to put his wife and her partner in jail.
She also claimed that she had been reporting these cases to the police, and had even gone to speak to police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, but no action had been taken. This newspaper has also sent questions to Cutajar, however, has not yet received replies.
Gauci’s mother, who accompanied her to the interview, also questioned why the police who responded to the call did not perform a breathalyser test on the former inspector.
The suspended officer had faced disciplinary proceedings following a number of incidents, including one in which he threatened the police commissioner while drunk.
In a Facebook post last week, Leader of Partit Demokratiku Marlene Farrugia asked what was being done by authorities with regard to this situation.