circumstances of how he was left in intensive care following a beating earlier this week.

Speaking from his hospital bed yesterday Mr. Mulinga, 27, denied rumours that he had provoked the attack by punching a women outside Odyssey nightclub on Front Street in the early hours of Monday morning -- a claim made by several eye-witnesses to the attack.

While he admitted in interviews with both of the Island's television stations that he had little recollection of the attack, he stressed that he could remember pushing his attackers as they came forward.

But he appeared to contradict himself in the same interview with a television station by saying his attackers had approached him from behind.

Still suffering from the beating in which he suffered head wounds, Mr. Mulinga said: "I didn't know that someone was coming up behind me and that's why someone hammered me.

"I just hit something and -- boom -- and from there I don't remember anything.

"I never pushed any woman away. I know I pushed some people away when I was walking who were coming to attack me.'' Mr. Mulinga said he would press charges if his assailants were ever discovered. And he also suggested the attackers picked on him because he was a foreigner.