Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1439469
23 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 DECEMBER 2021 NEWS Christmas specials tion in which he supplied infor- mation in exchange for a lighter sentence. He was jailed for 15 years by madam justice Edwina Grima. MaltaToday had previously reported that Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, had identified two suspected gang members to the police. Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, were later charged with having supplied the triggermen with the explosive device. The various compilations of evidence against Yorgen Fenech and that against brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, also re- lated to the murder, continue and will be discussed elsewhere in this publication. Murders Bojan Cmelik was jailed for life, with periods of solitary confinement, last October, after being convicted by a near-unanimous jury verdict of the 2018 murder of Pace- ville impresario Hugo Chet- cuti. He was unanimously de- clared guilty of carrying a knife in public without a licence or permit from the Commis- sioner of Police, as well as as- saulting and resisting police officers, who had needed to tase him several times during his ar- rest. In November, a unanimous not guilty verdict cleared Okolo In- nocent Okwudili of the murder of his friend and fellow Nigerian Joseph Ezechi, who died of a sin- gle stab wound inflicted by Ok- wudili in an Qawra apartment in 2020. The killing was ruled to have been carried out in self-de- fence. The court of magistrates is still hearing evidence in the case against Mayumi Santos Patac- sil, who was accused of fatally stabbing Marcelino Montalban Saraza, her partner of 4 years, in July. In December, the Court of Magistrates decreed that it had seen sufficient evidence to place her under a bill of indictment. Her case continues in January. Major successes in police drugs raids 2021 was a very successful year for the police Drugs Squad, who are conducting ongoing prose- cutions after carrying out large scale raids and several arrests, disrupting criminal networks involved in trafficking drugs. Record-breaking seizures of ille- gal drugs continue to be made, with 740kg of cocaine being intercepted en route to Slove- nia in June and four men being charged after 136kg of cannabis hidden in olive cans were seized in a raid on a Burmarrad ware- house in August. More recently, in December, an Italian man was remanded in custody after being charged in connection with the discovery of 1.2kg of cocaine and a total of 14kg of cannabis in various properties. El Hiblu case and Amnesty campaign The compilation of evidence against the three youths from Ivory Coast and Guinea who are accused of hijacking a tanker which had rescued them from the sea as they made the perilous crossing from Libya to Malta in 2019 will continue in the new year. This despite magistrate Nadine Lia making steady pro- gress in her unenviable task of hearing the approximately 100, often highly reluctant, non-an- glophone witnesses testify about the sea rescue. The Migrants Commission, JRS Malta and the Justice and Peace Commission marked the sec- ond anniversary of the youths' arrests by urging the authorities to drop the terrorsim charges brought against them. In No- vember 2020, Amnesty Interna- tional also launched the world's biggest human rights campaign, calling on governments to put right injustices against individ- uals who are detained or per- secuted in countries across the globe, and featured the 'El Hiblu 3'. "No one should be punished for standing up for their lives and the lives of others," Elisa De Pieri, Researcher at Amnesty In- ternational wrote at the time. Brothers Adrian and Robert Agius, known as Tal-Maksar, and associate Jamie Vella were arrested as murder suspect Vince Muscat pleaded guilty in court to Caruana Galizia's murder. The Agius brothers and Vella had been among 10 people arrested in December 2017 during police raids. The three had been released without charge but George Degiorgio, brother Alfred Degiorgio and Muscat were arraigned over the murder Left: Keith Schembri, partly hidden by the front passenger seat, seated in a police van next to his father Alfio Schembri as they are escorted into court to face charges of money laundering. Former Nexia BT partner Brian Tonna (below) is escorted to face similar charges together with his audit firm's partner