Alleged victim in Paola shooting refuses to testify against Il-Quws

“Il-Quws” Walks Free After Victim’s Silence in Paola Courtroom
Hot Malta Exclusive | By Maria Pace

PAOLA – The small courtroom on Triq il-Bahar felt more like a parish hall than a place of justice on Tuesday morning. Elderly women in black clutched rosaries, teenagers live-streamed on TikTok, and the smell of ftira from the bakery next door wafted through the open windows. All eyes were on the dock where 42-year-old Darren “Il-Quws”* Camilleri – a nickname whispered across Marsa’s garages and Paola’s back-alleys for two decades – waited to hear whether the bullet that grazed a rival’s shoulder last March would finally send him to Corradino.

It would not. The alleged victim, 26-year-old delivery rider Kurt* (name withheld by court order), stepped up to the witness stand, looked straight at Magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia, and muttered a single sentence in Maltese that triggered a collective groan: “Ma nixtieqx nitkellem.” I do not wish to speak.

Within minutes the prosecution’s case collapsed. The unregistered Luger, the spent cartridge found near the former Trade Fair grounds, even CCTV of two scooters racing through Għajn Dwieli at 2 a.m. – all evaporated like morning mist on the Grand Harbour. Camilleri swaggered out to a waiting Škoda, engine running, rap music thumping. Outside, his mother wept quietly against a stone wall still pock-marked from World War II shrapnel.

For Paola, a town that has spent the last decade trying to scrub away the stain of “Marsa’s spill-over crime,” the non-testimony is more than a legal hiccup; it is a cultural tremor. “We’ve seen this movie before,” sighed parish priest Fr. Joe Borg after Mass at Christ the King. “Fear still speaks louder than justice. The omertà our grandparents brought from Sicily never really left these streets.”

Local historian Dr. Nadine Briffa points out that Paola’s twin cores – the devout older generation who remember Queen Victoria’s statue being unveiled and the younger TikTok generation raised on trap beats and Deliveroo shifts – are pulling in opposite directions. “On one hand you’ve got the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes exploding with confetti and brass bands in August. On the other, you’ve got kids idolising ‘Il-Quws’ because he drives a matte-black AMG and throws €50 tips at barmaids. Today’s silence is the collision of those two worlds.”

Business owners along the main thoroughfare worry the acquittal will send the wrong message. “Tourists already bypass us for Birgu or Sliema,” said café owner Maria Micallef, wiping down tables shaped like traditional Maltese tiles. “If shootings happen and nobody talks, how are we supposed to sell ‘authentic community’?” Her 18-year-old son, who works the espresso machine between A-level revision, shrugged: “Kurt’s my age. He’s scared. Would you testify against a guy whose cousins know where your nanna buys ħobż biż-żejt?”

The police issued a terse statement promising “ongoing investigations” but privately officers admit the lack of witness cooperation is endemic. “We can’t guard every door,” one inspector told Hot Malta off-record. “The community has to decide what kind of Paola it wants.”

That decision may come sooner than expected. Mayor Dominic Grima has called an emergency town-hall meeting in the covered market on Saturday, where residents will debate everything from youth outreach to CCTV expansion. Flyers written in Maltese, English, and Somali – reflecting Paola’s newest demographic – have already gone up. A local DJ has offered free sound equipment; a band club promised coffee and pastizzi. In true Maltese fashion, even a crisis becomes a village festa.

As dusk settled over the dome of the Għajn Dwieli church on Tuesday, the square that witnessed the shooting was again filled with children chasing pigeons and old men arguing about Eurovision. Somewhere in the maze of alleyways, “Il-Quws” celebrated with a takeaway from the kebab shop that never asks questions. Whether Paola itself celebrates or finally breaks its ancient silence remains an open case.

*Nicknames have been altered in accordance with Maltese contempt-of-court rules.