Pleading Not Guilty, 21-Year-Old Albanian Bouncer Claims He Was The Victim In Viral NYE Paceville Beating
Riald Gragjevi, the first from a group of bouncers who was filmed brutally beating a man outside a Paceville nightclub on New Year’s Eve, has not only pleaded not guilty to the accusations brought before him… but said he was actually the victim in the whole thing.
Taken to court this afternoon after being arrested while boarding a flight at the airport yesterday, 21-year-old Gragjevi said he had been stabbed with a broken bottle. His defence lawyer, Shazoo Ghaznavi, told Magistrate Joe Mifsud that the bouncer actually required “eight stitches in the shoulder”, and that two other bottles were thrown at him after the stabbing.
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As reported by Times Of Malta, Ghaznavi went on to say that Gragjevi had actually purchased his plane ticket three weeks before the incident, and was therefore not trying to flee the country when he was arrested at the airport yesterday.
Assisted by lawyers Charlton Gouder and Jessica Formosa, Ghaznavi also urged the prosecution to bring civilian witnesses forward as quickly as possible so that a case for bail could be made.
In a video which was exclusively released by Lovin Malta earlier this week, Gragjevi and a number of other bouncers can be seen brutally beating up a man in Paceville’s St George’s Road. That man was 25-year-old Idriss Ahmed Adem, who later shared his side of the story in an exclusive interview with Lovin Malta.
“As I approached the bouncers, I was pushed by them and fell to the floor, shattering a glass bottle,” he said in that interview. “I picked up a piece of glass and threw it in self defence. The bouncers pushed me and began coming from everywhere. I realised there were too many of them and tried to escape, but I found myself on the floor. The next thing I know I woke up in Mater Dei.”
Cover Image, Right Photo by Talk.mt
What do you make of this latest development?
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