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The 59-year-old thug had clean forgotten police had been chasing him since 2010 when he hospitalised a passer-by after attacking him in the street.

And he might have stayed a fugitive even longer had his neighbour Erik Villalta Estrada, 41, not threatened to shoot him, forcing an indignant and terrified Gonzalez to demand police help.

The irony of reporting someone else for violence completely escaped Gonzalez.

A police spokesman in the Guatemalan capital Guatemala City said: "We had a patrol in the area and he spoke to them and accused his neighbour of trying to kill him.

"We investigated and recovered a pistol that was empty and arrested a man who claimed he had only been trying to frighten his neighbour.

"When we ran both their names through our database we had a bit of a surprise as it turned out there was an arrest warrant out for the suspected victim dating back to October 2010, so we arrested him as well.

"It seems he had forgotten we were after him.

"He also had four previous convictions dating back to 1975 for assault with a knife, illegally carrying knives, use and possession of drugs and theft."

Both men were arrested on the spot.