Some insults, a joint and then a cough: Qawra bar owner's recount of pub death

A Qawra bar owner facing murder charges told police that the alleged victim had lit up a joint inside his bar, picked on him and then coughed into his drink. 

David Busuttil, the 59-year-old owner of Munchies pub, stands accused of having killed Roger Dudley-Ward, 60, by shoving him down steps at the Qawra bar in the early hours of Friday morning on June 17.  

Medics found Dudley-Ward covered in blood and unable to speak, lying on a pavement at Triq it-Turisti, Qawra, just outside the pub.

His friend, London-born Shane Eagle told medics that someone had kicked the victim because he had coughed onto his drink and that Dudley-Ward had fallen backwards down the pub steps. 

The pavement was splattered with a “reddish liquid” and there were stained tissues scattered about, recalled a police sergeant from the Qawra police station when testifying on Monday.

He tried to get in touch with the bar owner, who at the time was not viewed as a suspect but simply as an informant who could shed light about the incident.

Busuttil turned up at the police station at 5.15am and was advised to contact a lawyer. He then spoke to a legal aid lawyer who was on duty at that time. 

Then he recounted how...