The frayed nerves and raw emotion of murdered entrepreneur Hugo Chetcuti’s extended family were evident this morning as his brother in law took the stand to tell the jury trying Bojan Cmelik for Chetcuti’s killing about Cmelik’s employment with the victim’s business empire.

Noel Falzon, Chetcuti’s brother-in-law and a manager at Bacco,  gave an emotional account of the psychological trauma he had suffered as a result of the murder, but also of how he had engaged Cmelik to work there twice, after having fired him first for not speaking English at work and on a second occasion over his attitude.

“I know his brother Adam Mitic. He was one of my best bartenders at Bacco. He asked to bring his brother on board and to teach him to be a bartender. Adam told me to help him out because he’d just been stopped from (Hugo’s) Terrace.

“My brother used to teach us to forgive. Someone does something wrong; you give him another chance. Stupidly. Fool me! I was an idiot!” Falzon said as he broke down sobbing on the stand.

“I brought him up there to teach him how to be a bartender,” he said after recovering. “I had my best bartender, his brother, but he couldn’t talk English. I got this one (indicating the accused) to kill two birds with one stone.”

Mitic had been dismissed first, “I gave him a lot of chances. Hugo told us to be kind. This is what this one took away from us,” he said bitterly.

A visibly emotional and highly agitated Falzon informed the judge and the jury that the last time he had testified, before the compilation of evidence against Cmelik, the accused had laughed at him from the dock. “Last time I came here, he was laughing at me. Because this is something to laugh about…”

Asked why Cmelik had been fired, Falzon replied that he had 19 employees at Bacco. “He knows full well that I had Serbians, Italians, French, Japanese and Thai workers who all talk English. I need to have a team… so I made a rule that everybody speaks English.”

“He took him away from me! Why! Why! Why! Why did this man, after all the things I did with him... He knows how I treated him. I will go to Serbia to see Adam and his mother.”

Falzon said that he had been told that Bojan was acting funny. “I was a fool, an idiot. I want to explain myself, so you are not fooled like I was,” he told the jurors.

“There was an incident where he said, ‘boss, I’m not happy’ because I changed around the lockers. I said take the one you had if it makes you happy. This is the only issue I had with Bojan.”

He had stopped his brother from working with the company because of his excessive drinking. “I was close to the brothers because they were good workers,” said Falzon. “He,” referring to Cmelik,” he …not bad.”

“But I stopped him not because he was speaking Serbian. He fully knows that I didn’t fire him because he was speaking Serbian. I stopped him from working because…he told me, ‘if I want to speak Serbian, I f*****g will.’ I didn’t like the attitude… Mr Nobody!” shouted the witness.

 

Hugo’s youngest brother recalls the stabbing moment

Isaac Chetcuti, Hugo’s youngest brother also took the stand, recalling the moment his brother was stabbed.

“We heard somebody shout Hugo’s name and both of us looked over at the bar to see who was shouting. The voice was coming from the Bar Native side."

“This person came with his hand raised, as if he was going to hug my brother. I saw him holding my brother’s neck and a movement, two strikes towards his abdomen.”

The witness demonstrated the movement on a court messenger provided by the court. “They were short movements towards his stomach.”

With his voice breaking, he said he noticed his brother bending over and realising that something bad was happening. He said he went in to separate them.

“Right before the stabbing Hugo’s expression indicated that he didn’t recognise this person, but people would come to speak to him all the time and he was a very friendly person.”

“I spoke to Hugo the next morning, Saturday 7th as the ITU doctors informed me that he was been brought out of his induced coma.”

“The first thing he told me was ‘I don’t know why, I don’t even know this person’,” said the witness, his voice breaking.

“Obviously he was in pain, and I told him to be strong and that he would overcome this.”

The witness didn’t leave his brother’s side. “On Sunday I went to speak to him and he told me he was very much in pain. I tried to encourage him and said he would overcome this as well.”

Asked by the prosecution how the murder had affected him, he said, “my brother was like a father figure. He was always present for me. His loss is a great one,” he said, his voice breaking once again.

A juror asked whether Hugo was conscious and speaking on Sunday morning. “He was conscious and he spoke to me but obviously he was in pain,” replied the witness.

The jury continues in the afternoon.

Cmelik is being represented by legal aid lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace.

Lawyers Joe Giglio and Mario Spiteri are appearing on behalf of the Chetcuti family.

Lawyers Kevin Valletta and Maria Francesca Spiteri from the Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting.

Mr. Justice Aaron Bugeja is presiding the trial.