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8 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 2 NOVEMBER 2022 MATTHEW AGUIS CHRISTOPHER Schembri from Ħamrun was jailed for 18 months and fined €1,500 by Magistrate Natasha Galea Sci- berras, who was only recently assigned to the case. The case had been reassigned several times over the 17-year span it took to get decided by the courts. Schembri had been accused of conspiring with Raymond Gerada, a prison warder at the time, to traffic heroin inside Corradino Correctional Facil- ity. The court had heard how a sachet containing heroin had been found in Gerada's wallet when he had been searched by his colleagues. The police had questioned Gerada, who had been working at Corradino for 12 years at the time. He told them that Schem- bri, a former inmate whom he had met during Schembri's stint behind bars, had handed him a plastic sachet, asking him to give it to Schembri's father- in-law. Gerada had admitted to suspecting that it contained some sort of illegal substance, but denied receiving, or being promised, anything in return. The prison guard had faced separate charges in relation to this incident. In his testimony, Schembri had denied ever supplying any drugs to his father-in-law. The father-in-law, on the other hand, had told the court that he had never asked anyone to smuggle drugs into prison. The court also heard the tes- timony of a social worker who confirmed that Schembri had once followed a heroin rehabil- itation programme. The court, having seen the ev- idence and heard the testimo- ny of several witnesses, found Gerada's account to be more credible, concluding that the accused had handed him the drugs to supply his father-in- law. In her considerations on pun- ishment, the magistrate took into account the fact that, over the years, Schembri had been convicted for several offences, including theft, voluntary dam- age, carrying an unlicensed weapon, as well as for slightly injuring a person. Schembri had enticed a pris- on official into smuggling drugs inside a place intended for reform and rehabilitation, said the court, also taking into account the progress the ac- cused had made in overcoming his drug addiction in handing down the 18 month sentence and fine. Assistant Commissioner of Police Dennis Theuma prose- cuted. MARIANNA CALLEJA THE summer months brought Air Malta more than just re- structuring and unending un- certainty because Malta's na- tional airline also transported 1.1 million passengers in only five months. Air Malta's summer schedule ended on 31 October and the airline confirmed that it had achieved unprecedented lev- els of seat occupancy between June and October. The airline had a seat load factor in access of 90% across the entire net- work. David Curmi, Air Malta ex- ecutive chairman, said that throughout the summer Air Malta lived up to its purpose of providing regular and stable connectivity at all times. "We stood by our belief that it is better to give our customers confidence that they will travel as opposed to enforced flight cancellations leaving custom- ers stranded with no alterna- tive travel options available," he said. He explained how despite the challenges faced at certain key airports, Air Malta kept being one of the airlines that cancelled the lowest number of flights while keeping delays and disruption to the barest minimum. Chief Commercial Officer, Roy Kinnear, talked about plans to grow the airline's net- work further and increase it's flying time in the upcoming two years. "Whilst existing routes will be retained, we are considering adding five new destinations... This means, increasing our weekly flights by over 20% to 155 flights," Kinnear said. Air Malta is passing through a painful restructuring process as government seeks the Euro- pean Commission's green light to shore up the airline. In January, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana announced a voluntary employee transfer scheme in a bid to cut Air Mal- ta's workforce by half and save €15 million per year in wages. However, this process has stalled and government pushed back the deadline for Air Mal- ta's employee transfer scheme to the end of the year, while al- so introducing a generous vol- untary redundancy and early retirement scheme. Meanwhile, talks are under- way with pilots over a clause in their collective agreement that obliges the airline to continue paying them after they retire from active duty until pension- able age. Government wants to buy out this clause, which is costing the airline a lot of money. Pilots were excluded from the redundancy schemes since Air Malta had sacked 69 pilots in the summer of 2020 after talks with the Airline Pilots Associ- ation broke down. The move came after a protracted stand- off between the airline's man- agement and pilots after the latter refused to accept a so- cial wage of €1,200 per month in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Decommissioning plan prepared for San Lucjan oil tanking facility A plan to decommission the San Luċjan oil tanking facility in Birżebbuġa has been agreed with the Environment and Resources Authority, Miriam Dalli said. The Environment Minister said the outline plan will form the basis of a tender that will be issued for the removal of the existing oil tanks. The 18,000sq.m site at Qajj- enza is earmarked for rede- velopment into a hub for re- search and innovation for new industries and a recreational zone for families. The project called Is-Siċċa (cuttlefish) was unveiled before the general election. When replying in parliament to questions by Opposition MP Toni Bezzina, Dalli said work was underway to carry out a ground water and soil in- vestigation of the site, as well preparations for cleaning and waste disposal as outlined in the decommissioning plan. She added that project man- agers and health and safety supervision officers will be en- gaged to oversee the decom- missioning of the oil tanks. Man jailed for 18 months over 2005 conspiracy to smuggle heroin into prison Over 1 million travel on Air Malta in summer

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