For the eight defendants aged between 21 and 32, 14 February 2016 did not have any love in the air, it appears. The trial began on Monday afternoon with eight men accused of assault and battery, although one of the defendants was not present at the trial.
One of the trickier aspects of the brawl is that three of the defendants are police officers and other defendants being soldiers or having been in the army. The session on Monday showed a video recorded by a taxi driver at the time. The video shows the second phase of the brawl between police officers and presumed members of a gang from the south of the country.
The main question at court was whether the gang members had recognised the police officers as officers. A further difficulty was that two of the police officers maintained the other group had attacked them, whereas those defendants claimed one of their friends had been hit by a police officer.
The video shows both groups participating in the brawl but also clearly show a third police officer begin attacking one of the other defendants before being attacked himself. The second police officer was on the ground alongside a witness, but had been seen holding the handle of an axe earlier in the video.
Many of the events of that night remain unclear and were not clarified by witness testimonies, who were unable to determine whether the police officers were recognised as officers and whether this caused the brawl to escalate.
According to a commissioner of the police's general inspectorate, one of the police officers involved in the brawl claimed it would cause huge problems. The commissioner also said the third police officer was described as drunk, although the defendant, who admitted to having participated, maintained he had not been drunk.
The commissioner noted that none of the involved parties had submitted a complaint against the others. That the officers did not submit any complaints may have been due to disciplinary reasons.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
