Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1086539
4 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 27 FEBRUARY 2019 DAVID HUDSON AN appeals court gave a wom- an charged with being the abusive mastermind of a fraud operation in 2014 a three-year probation instead of four years in jail. Graziella Apap had been charged with coercing her on-again-off-again lover Jo- seph Meilaq into going door to door, asking for donations in the name of Dar tal-Provi- denza. "I pleaded for her to start working so we could settle down, but she told me she'd kill me and throw me out at sea if I didn't do her bidding," Meilaq told the first court. The first court heard how Apap was sending Meilaq out to ask for money from un- suspecting, usually elderly residents, from localities like Sliema, Cottonera, Tarxien, Qormi and even Victoria in Gozo at one point. Meilaq usually wore a cap, hiding his face, and asked residents for an amount between €100 and €300, sometimes more. He im- personated a volunteer for Dar tal-Providenza, sometimes telling his victims that they had won a monetary prize and had to pay a small deposit be- fore collecting it. "I didn't need to do this be- cause I was earning €1,200 a month, gross, working with the garbage trucks," Meilaq told the first court. "But I had to because [Graziella] was asking for €100 a day and she would beat me if I didn't do it." He said Apap had a tendency to beat him in public but she never joined him on his door- to-door endeavours because she "wasn't cut out for it." She relied solely on his "tal- ents" because he was a recidi- vist who had done this kind of thing before, asking people for money in the name of chari- ties. Meilaq denied that he had returned to this criminal be- haviour on his own accord and said that he was doing it for her. Apap, on the other hand, de- nied forcing her lover to col- lect money. The court had heard how it was difficult for the police to get a hold of Meilaq even though he was identified on various pieces of CCTV foot- age after 34 police reports were filed. He had been living out of various hotels, mainly the Topaz, the Marina Holi- day Complex, and the Dolmen Hotel. Meilaq admitted that he had financed these stays with the money collected in the name of Dar tal-Providenza when he was arrested on 5 May 2014 at a Chinese restaurant in Bu- gibba. The director of Dar tal-Prov- idenza, Fr Martin Micallef, was shown receipts purport- edly given to Meilaq's victims when they handed their mon- ey and said that the charity would never collect donations door to door. Apap was arrested shortly af- ter Meilaq was detained, when he kept invoking her name. Apap has four children who were not in her custody but in foster care. At her home, police found televisions, ti- ger statuettes, and other fur- niture. She denied that these were bought recently despite the police finding receipts at her home showing their recent purchase. Meilaq claimed that these were bought with the money she asked from him. "I bought her a washing machine too, a Playstation 4, televisions, fur- niture," Meilaq claimed, add- ing that he was aware that she was seeing a Syrian man at the time but that he had to help her because he loved her. The court heard how Apap sometimes paid Meilaq some sexual favours. When the two parties met at the conference room of the police headquarters in Flori- ana, shortly after their arrest, Apap started swearing when she spotted Meilaq and picked up a chair. "If it hadn't been for two officers who held her back, she would have smashed it on him," the prosecuting of- ficer had said. Several people testified against Meilaq in the first court – most of the time, he told victims that they had won a competition but they had to first pay around €200 to claim their spoils. Apap's probation officer Maryrose Farrugia presented a Social Inquiry Report say- ing that Apap kept bad com- pany who had first introduced her to prostitution at a fairly young age. The report, however, said that she was showing a char- acter of reformation and that three of her four children were now in her custody. The Appeals Court, pre- sided over by Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera, said that the first court did not pay much attention to this fact and that Meilaq's testimony was the only proof against her person. "The fact that Meilaq bought a washing machine among other things for Apap with the money he collected doesn't mean that she forced him to," the court said, adding that Meilaq was, after all, a recidi- vist and that he had evinced this kind of behaviour before- hand, collecting money from unsuspecting persons using this fraudulent technique of impersonating charities. The court deemed Meilaq's testimony inadmissible and argued that it wasn't possible for him to hand Apap €100 a day and buy her expensive things while simultaneously living in hotel rooms. The court did however feel that Apap knew where the money for the items Meilaq was handing her was coming from since she had told police that the purchases weren't re- cent even though they were. She had also exhibited violent behaviour towards her former lover when the two met at the police headquarters. "The court must consider the positive Social Inquiry Report and the defendant's reformative character. She's also a mother and her children would be prejudiced if she's imprisoned," the court said. Apap's "excessive" sentence of four-year imprisonment was repealed by the Appeals Court and she was instead let off with a three-year proba- tion. Lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri were de- fence counsel. Probation for charity fraudster instead of prison Woman who forced lover to fake being a charity collector has prison term changed to probation ONE of the Nationalist Party's candidates has called for wider debates to be organized by the European Parliament office in Malta for all candidates for the 2019 elections. Peter Agius, a former head of the EP office in Malta and more re- cently a spokesper- son for EP president Antonio Tajani, said recent debates had featured incumbents but not enough from the wide list of can- didates for this year's elections. Agius said he was "ap- palled" to see European election candidates be- ing systematically excluded from the institutional cam- paign led by the European Parliament Office in Malta. "The public has a right to know its choices coming up to the European election. For this reason, the European Parliament Of- fice has in the past both in 2009 and in 2014 involved all candidates in its debates as from September the year before," Agius, who headed the office up to his re- cent appointment as Tajani's spokesperson, said. "This is not the case this time. New candi- dates are being sys- tematically exclud- ed from events and plans of the EP office. In my per- sonal opinion, this goes against the very same ethos of European democ- racy, as expressed by MEPs themselves as recently as last week where, in a debate with Commissioner Gabriel in the European Parliament, MEPs insisted on the need for a wide debate including all the diversity of opinions with a view to the very im- portant decision to be taken on 25 May… Europe should be about open dialogue and diversity of opinion." Exclusion of candidates from EP debates 'appalls' PN candidate Peter Agius is a former head of the EP office in Malta and more recently a spokesperson for EP president Antonio Tajani MICHEL Vella was condition- ally discharged for 20 months and given a restraining or- der for accessing his former friends Facebook account. The court heard how the two colleagues used to work togeth- er at the Dolmen hotel, when the victim had asked to use the defendant's phone back in 2015. Vella insisted that she had left her Facebook logged in on his mobile phone, but the vic- tim's device said otherwise. "I knew that his phone was an HTC Wildfire. I received an email saying that such a phone at the estimated location of St Paul's Bay at 1:30am had reset my password by answering my secret question," the victim told the court, showing the email in question. The victim also submitted a pen drive showing footage of Vella crying heartily and asking her for an apology. The inquiring magistrate, Do- natella Frendo, heard how Vella knew the answer to the secret question "mother's hometown" to access the Facebook pass- word, because he knew her mother was from Rabat. Another employee at the Dol- men Hotel testified saying that Vella had boasted having ac- cess to the victim's Facebook account. "Even if the plaintiff informed the defendant of her password, which is not the case here, this doesn't mean that he has the right to pry and access her account without her know- ing," the court said, adding that these kinds of crimes were be- coming more frequent at an alarming rate. "This behaviour amounts to the violation of the person con- cerned and constitutes a villain- ous and violent intrusion in the sense that it was done against her will," the court said. Vella was conditionally dis- charged for a period of 20 months and given a restraining order for a period of two years. Inspectors Edel Mary Camill- eri and Robert Vella prosecuted. Restraining order for man who accessed friend's Facebook account