Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1331044
2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 20 JANUARY 2021 NEWS COVID-19: One death and 200 new cases LAURA CALLEJA 200 new cases of COVID-19 were reg- istered on Tuesday, the health ministry said. 148 new recoveries were registered, bringing the number of active cases to 2,835. 13,002 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered until Monday. Total recoveries stand at 12,865 while total cases registered stand at 15,942. One more person died while infected with COVID-19 during the last 24 hours. The victim was an 84-year-old woman. The total number of deaths is 242. 3,481 swab tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of swabs to 573,665. Court rescinds decree allowing Muscats in Ferris perjury case MATTHEW AGIUS A court has rescinded a decree allowing former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his spouse Michelle Muscat to participate in a perjury case against former FIAU manager Jonathan Ferris "at this stage." The case had originally been slated to be heard by Magistrate Joe Mifsud, who however, subse- quently recused himself on No- vember 11 due to a possible con- flict of interest - moments after granting the Muscats the right to participate in the proceedings. The reason given for the recus- al was the fact that Mifsud is also hearing a separate case in which whistleblower Maria Efimova is charged with making false accu- sations about several police of- ficers, including Ferris. On 23 November 2020, the case was assigned to magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia. Ferris' counsel, lawyers Kris Busietta and Jason Azzopardi, had requested magistrate Farru- gia rescind the decree contrario imperio, arguing that an abstain- ing Magistrate could not take a decision impacting the rest of the proceedings, and that the couple had no standing in the case at hand. "With all due respect to the mag- istrate concerned, in the opinion of this court as presided, this pro- cedure goes contrary to that pre- scribed in section 368 of the Crim- inal Code. Once the magistrate concerned felt that there were reasons for him to abstain from hearing the case, he could not then move on to other acts in the case and therefore neither could he uphold the Muscats' request." As a result, the Muscats do not currently have legal standing in the perjury case against Ferris. That said, the court made it clear that the revocation of the decree was not an outright refusal of the Muscats' request to be intro- duced as a party, but simply that the court was not in a position to decree on it at this stage of the proceedings. The perjury case was filed against Ferris after he had claimed to have identified a $600,000 transaction from Ley- la Aliyeva, daughter of Azer- baijani president Ilham Alijev, to the New York-based fashion company Buttardi, a company owned by Michelle Buttigieg, a close friend of Michelle Muscat. Ferris had claimed the payment was disguised as a loan. In a sitting yesterday, prose- cuting officers Wayne Rodney Borg and George Frendo, from the Economic Crimes Unit of the police, told the court that they had found no evidence of the transaction in the FIAU working files and had therefore proceed- ed to charge Ferris with perjury. Inspectors Borg and Frendo had inherited the case from Super- intendent Yvonne Farrugia and former police inspector Matthew Vella. Both Farrugia and Vella will testify at a later stage. Joseph and Michelle Muscat (pictured) do not currently have legal standing in the perjury case against Jonathan Ferris