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Two Progress Press officials facing fraud and money laundering charges made no personal financial gains from the allegedly fraudulent application filed for a grant from Malta Enterprise, a police inspector testified on Monday.  Leanne Bonello, from the police anti-money laundering squad, told the court that after carefully analysing financial statements belonging to Progress Press managing director Michel Rizzo and former financial controller Claude Licari, the police found nothing to prove any financial gain. She explained how in Rizzo’s case, there was a €4,500 incoming transaction whi...

According to law, the prosecution has one month to present all its evidence to sustain its criminal case against someone accused of committing a crime.  Tonna Lowell insisted that there was “absolutely no evidence” linking Mercieca to the attempted bribery. “There is no evidence at all on Mercieca. Zero. I’m not going to speculate on why he was charged too because we'll be here till tonight. But the truth of the matter is that there is absolutely nothing against him. Martin, the main witness in the case, never mentioned that it was Mercieca who offered him the money and none of the p...

In her eight-page decree, quoting local and European case law on the right to information during the criminal justice process, also known in technical jargon as “disclosure”, the magistrate noted that although the law referred to “material evidence”, this was not only evidence that the prosecution was planning to present in court as evidence.  The law, she said, was there to ensure a level playing field between the prosecution and the defence and to safeguard the proper procedure during criminal proceedings. The statement given by Martin to the police, she ruled, was “intrinsically...

A man who was caught with four ecstasy pills in his shoe as he was queuing for a party in March 2013 has been jailed for three months following an eight-year criminal process. The 42-year-old man, Sherlock Cachia, was stopped as he was entering a party at MFCC in Ta’ Qali on the night of March 31, 2013. He was found in possession of ecstasy pills and was charged with possession of the drug in circumstances denoting they were not for his personal use. Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras heard police Inspector Johann Fenech testify that it was a one-off case and that the accused had no other d...

The younger son of European Commissioner Helena Dalli, Jean-Marc, has been jailed for three months after he was found guilty of trafficking ecstasy at a party in Paola in 2013. Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras put the 25-year-old in prison after he was caught red-handed handing over six ecstasy pills to another man outside a party venue at the old prisons in Corradino in September 2013.   The case has reignited calls for a swifter justice system. The court heard how the police stationed outside the party venue saw a group of young people arriving and noticed the accused handing over a bag ...