Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1373323
4 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 19 MAY 2021 NEWS MATTHEW AGIUS SOME 12 Terabytes of data recovered by the police in searches related to Darren Debono and Jeffrey Chetcuti have been exhibited in court, prompting the magis- trate to highlight the need for more staff. Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech heard a court-appointed IT expert re- port on various devices, amongst them, several smartphones as the compilation of evidence against the two men contin- ued this morning. The expert had examined laptops and iPads, 22 mobile phones, hard drives from laptops, PCs and servers and 22 memory cards. The contents of the de- vices were exhibited on a 12 Tb hard drive this morning. Debono, who is accused in Italy of par- ticipating in a €30 million fuel smuggling ring, and Chetcuti are charged with money laundering. The defence requested a copy of the data. Two architects, Daniel Micallef and Claude Mallia testified to their relation- ship with Scoglitti. Micallef said he had been commis- sioned to carry out architectural works at the restaurant by Debono on 16 April 2014. He had filed an application for a Development Notification Order in Debono's name. Another application was filed to make a tent on the premises into a permanent structure, add solar panels and other small jobs, but the Planning Board had recommended a refusal. The application for Scoglitti was then withdrawn. In this case the application was made by Debono as an individu- al. On 8 March 2018, an enforcement notice was issued to Florinda Sultana. "When this happens the solutions are two: Either you remove the structure or apply to sanction." In this case an appli- cation to sanction was filed by Sultana. A change in name of the applicant to a Marvin McKay was made somewhere along the line, he said. The permit was eventually refused and the refusal con- firmed on appeal in February this year. Mallia testified about the Sottomare restaurant application for internal al- terations. He recognised Debono as the client. A representative of the Planning Au- thority exhibited an application filed by Florinda Sultana over Scoglietti in Val- letta, together with its refusal. An appeal was filed in the name of Marvin MacKay, said the representative. Another appli- cation filed by Debono for Scoglietti in 2016 was withdrawn during a board sit- ting. As the sitting drew to a close, the mag- istrate was asked about the digitalisation of the acts of the case – over a dozen vol- umes. Magistrate Frendo Dimech said that the court had requested urgent digitali- sation of acts as the case files copies are required by the defence and there was no time for her staff to do them. The work- load on the court employees was too great, she said. "Every document has to be stamped and numbered and signed. This is a waste of time," observed the visibly annoyed magistrate. "As soon as the administration gives us the staff, I can work." Inspectors Joseph Xerri and James Turner, assisted by AG lawyer Antoine Agius Bonnici, prosecuted. Lawyers Giannella De Marco, Stephen Tonna Lowell, Jean-Paul Sammut, Gi- anluca Caruana Curran and Charles Mercieca assisted Debono and Chetcuti. AN AI-enabled biotech company will start developing a medical diagnostics tool for COVID-19 in Malta, facilitated with the financial support of €1 million received from Malta Enterprise. OmniScope's co-founder Dr Holger Heyn, the team leader at the National Cen- tre for Genomic Analysis (CNAG-CRG), said the research and development plac- es Malta at the heart of an international collaboration, with a Malta-based team of experts in AI and computational biolo- gy teaming up with OmniScope's Spanish expert in genomics and its state of the art manufacturing partner in Singapore. OmniScope's first product, OmniScan, seeks to become a universal diagnostic tool that listens to the immune system to broadly detect disease at the earliest stages through simple, minimally inva- sive clinical tests. "Our desire is for our cutting-edge technology to be of service to the glob- al community in these challenging times of heightened emerging pandemic risks," Heyn said. "This financial support represents a true collaboration between nations to in- vest in much needed innovation. We aim to apply science to rapidly bring solu- tions we so urgently need right now." OmniScope is building an AI innova- tion team in Malta, where it wants to establish an international centre of excel- lence and innovation for bioinformatics and AI-enabled biotechnology. OmniScope's state-of-the-art produc- tion and manufacturing facilities in Sin- gapore provide a fast-track to commer- cial availability for COVID-19 and other PCR & NGS test prototypes. Commercial co-founder Vijay Vaswani said the Malta Enterprise financial sup- port was a major growth opportunity for both OmniScope and Malta, his home country. "Malta will be playing a central role in our international expansion. My great-grandfather came to Malta as a refugee in the early 1900s. OmniScope's Malta operations are my way of giving back to Malta and expressing my grati- tude, as his great-grandson. I'm proud to support the growth of talent, investment, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the country that has had such a profound im- pact on my life." Malta Enterprise CEO Kurt Farrugia said OmniScope's decision to invest in Malta confirmed the island's competitive proposition for all those who want to en- gage in highly innovative projects. Police present 12 Terabytes of data in searches related to Darren Debono AI-biotech firm starts groundbreaking COVID diagnostics tool research in Malta Darren Debono and Jeffrey Chetcuti