Man Charged Over Violent Paceville Outburst And Sent To Mount Carmel
A Spanish man has been charged with assaulting four people and damaging 12 vehicles in a violent outburst in Paceville earlier this week.
Police today filed charges against 38-year-old Gonzalo-Noel Sanchez Fernandez after he attacked three people at a restaurant in Triq il-Wilġa, as well as a cab driver, on Monday night.
He is pleading not guilty to all charges.
Although his lawyer David Bonello didn’t file a request for bail, he did ask that he be kept in Mount Carmel’s Forensic Unit, rather than prison, a request that was granted by magistrate Gabriella Vella.
Police inspector Jean Paul Attard testified that Sanchez Fernandez had entered a restaurant at around 8:30pm and assaulted the people present, even smashing a glass bottle over the head of a Swiss national.
Two people had to physically constrain him until the police arrived, and when they turned up, the accused resisted arrest and violently fought back to the point where RIU officers had to tase him.
He was taken to Mater Dei where he was given sedatives to calm him down.
Attard said that tests showed the accused had ingested mental health medication, alcohol and other unspecified drugs on the night of the assault.
Lovin Malta this week spoke to the cab driver who Sanchez Fernandez had assaulted.
“I had slowed down a bit because there’s a zebra crossing there, and I just see this guy running out of a restaurant with a bottle in his hands,” the driver said.
“I didn’t think it was anything – until he jumped on my car, jumped on my bonnet, and smashed the bottle on my windscreen before trying to open my door – but, thank God, it was locked.”
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