Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1022495
NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 SEPTEMBER 2018 2 MASSIMO COSTA ALFRED Degiorgio, one of the three suspects accused of the assassination of the jour- nalist Daphne Caruana Gali- zia, risks losing his right to have FBI agents who worked on the murder case testify in a Constitutional case he filed, after his lawyer could not confirm whether he will make the sitting. In July, lawyer William Cuschieri filed a Constitu- tional application arguing that the decision to allow the FBI to testify in the Caruana Galizia murder case was tak- en before the window for De- giorgio's appeal had closed, and that arrest warrants had been executed by the police illegally. As part of this Constitution- al case, being heard before Judge Lorraine Schembri Or- land, FBI agents were due to testify via video conferencing. However, in an official com- munication delivered by the court usher, Judge Schembri Orland noted how Cuschieri, acting as Degiorgio's lawyer, had failed to confirm to the court whether Degiorgio and him could make the video conference sitting with the FBI. Despite emails being sent in this regard on 22 and 23 Au- gust, together with a reminder email on 28 August, no reply was received from Cuschieri. Cuschieri had also failed to confirm whether he could make another court sitting related to the Constitutional case, which had its date de- ferred. The court – taking into con- sideration the fact that the video conferencing involved testimony by the FBI who are witnesses in the case, and the fact that it is the court's responsibility to ensure that cases proceed – notified Cuschieri that his behav- iour could be considered to amount to contempt of court should he not give a suitable explanation for it. It also ordered Cuschieri to declare, within two days from yesterday, if he is still inter- ested in having the FBI agents give testimony in the case, and, failing this, he will be considered to have renounced their testimony. Caruana Galizia murder suspect risks contempt of court over FBI testimony JAMES DEBONO A Master Plan for the Mrie- hel area commenced two years ago is still being drafted as the Planning Authority is tomorrow set to approve a 1,200sq.m lateral extension for the Quad Towers, origi- nally approved in 2016. The case officer report rec- ommending the approval of the project said that the "Mas- ter Plan for the Mrieħel Area is also under way and should ad- dress the more strategic issues related to traffic management in the area." Whilst all four towers remain with similar building heights (15, 17, 19, and 14 storeys) as already approved, the new proposal involves an addition- al site area of circa 1,200sq.m to be developed into a terraced extension of the East Tower. The report concludes the proposed increase in mass will be hidden by the already approved mass of the East Tower, thus excluding any ad- ditional visual impact on views from Mdina. The extension is also deemed to have a minimal impact on traffic flows. The impact on parking is also considered negligible because the extension provides 208 more parking spaces than what was originally approved while creating an additional demand for 118 parking spaces. But the calculation is still based on official formula ac- cording to which offices re- quire one parking space for every 50sq.m. Mriehel masterplan 'underway' as PA set to approve tower extension THE separated parents of a young child enrolled at a school in Ta' Paris have filed a joint applica- tion to the Family Section of the Civil Court after the school authorities ordered them to provide a "certificate of care and custody," in order to enrol the child at school, with their lawyer accusing the school of making up the rules as they go along. The court application, signed by lawyer Jo- seph Brincat, reads that the couple were faced with a letter from the school's headmaster in- sisting on the certificate in order to register the child at the school. The lawyer said that he had angrily written a declaration by the mother, authorising and consenting to the father registering the child at the school, but that the headmaster had in- sisted that a "certificate of care and custody" was needed. "The undersigned lawyer has exasperatedly summoned both parties to make this joint application, sign on it and also attach a copy of their ID cards, aside from a copy of the child's birth certificate, so that maybe it will get through the bureaucracy not to send peo- ple here and there to obtain a useless piece of paper, if not also an inexistent one." Brincat argued that it would be farcical to expect parents of all children to go to court and obtain this certificate when both parents would have formally expressed their consent. He asked the court to confirm that there is no need for decrees or the pointless expense of court applications to express their reasonable and sensible consent in the best interest of their young daughter and to order the school and any authority concerned to accept a docu- ment signed by both parents as proof of their consent. Parents take school to court over 'pointless' custody certificate requirement