Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499169
MATTHEW VELLA A French wine merchant suffered a costly outlay for over 3,300 bot- tles of wine in his Sliema shop, when he failed to affix excise duty stamps on the bottles within five days of their issuance. A court of magistrates threw out a request by the Baron Max es- tablishment, who suffered the confiscation of 3,332 bottles of wine from his Sliema outlet, when a Customs official found them without their excise duty stamp. THE merchant was found to have over 7,600 duty stamps he had procured that had not yet been affixed to the bottles, which were also confiscated in the search, and had to pay €16,168 – or half their real value – to have them released from Customs. He was later refunded €2,000 for 414 bot- tles which had been incorrectly confiscated. BUT the merchant pleaded with the court that he was unaware of the law, which required him to affix the duty stamps within five days from their procurement, and said in his defence that the bottles were stashed away in a basement floor of his outlet. FAR from not being accessible to the public as the wine merchant claimed, the Customs inspector told the Court that the Baron Max basement was easily accessible to customers. The Court agreed that the law made no distinction between which bottles are consid- ered 'in storage' or not, since the rules were clear on affixing im- ported products with a duty-paid label once issued. "IT is no defence to state that the bottles were simply being stored, or that at the time of inspection these were not for sale… a fiscal law has to be respected to the let- ter without variance," the court said, which refused the wine merchant's protestations that the Customs confiscsation had been illegal. THE merchant also pleaded that having acquired over 7,000 duty stamps, he could not be consid- ered as having stolen anything from the public exchequer. BUT the Court was adamant that this reasoning was wrong, given that the duty stamps acquired ex- ceeded by far the amount of bot- tles in the store without an affixed stamp. "The plaintiff himself stat- ed that some bottles ended up be- ing sold without their excise duty stamp. This means that any one of these duty stamps could have then been affixed on any other bottle, on which no duty would have been paid. It is in this way that the failure to affix the stamps in the time requested at law, placed the plaintiff in a situation where he could have easily evaded the pay- ment of duty… had this Customs search not taken place." mvella@mediatoday.com.mt 6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MAY 2023 NEWS Customs spills the claret for Sliema shop in duty evasion Wine merchant who did not affix Customs duty stamps, has over 3,300 wine bottles confiscated and fined €16,000 Kidnap suspect Burton over violent attack MATTHEW AGIUS A gang of men have been con- victed of various offences in connection with a violent at- tack on a woman and her son in Bormla, four years ago. Siblings Burton, Zven, Keith and Ryan Azzopardi of Birkir- kara, together with Marlon Bal- dacchino from Zabbar, faced several charges, including that of attempted grievous bodily harm against a woman, her son and in- fant grandson whom they pelted with glass bottles. Burton Azzopardi was in the news in April this year after he was charged with attempting to suborn a witness in connection with an alleged kidnapping with which he is also facing charges. His brother, Zven Azzopardi was charged with pointing a gun at his mechanic and trying to run him over, in that same month. The woman targeted in the at- tack had told the court how she had received threatening and in- sulting messages about her son from Zven Azzopardi in Decem- ber 2019, in which he said that he and his accomplices would "cut off both his legs". This threat appears to have been made in connection with a dispute over the theft of a car bumper and two headlamps. Soon after receiving the mes- sages, the Azzopardi brothers and Baldacchino caught up with her in a car while she was walk- ing in Triq San Pawl, Bormla. The four men then got out of the vehicle. Burton Azzopardi, who had been driving, was carrying a makeshift truncheon, she said. When the woman asked him whether he intended to hit her with it, Keith Azzopardi held Burton back. At that point, Mar- lon Azzopardi got back in the car and drove it up to the front of her house, where he revved the engine, as if preparing to use the car as a battering ram against the front door. She told the court that the next Sunday morning, two of her son's cars had been set on fire. The arsonist was not identified. At around 7:30pm the follow- ing Monday, while smoking a cigarette in Triq in-Nadur, Marsaskala, the five defendants suddenly arrived in a car. Mar- lon Baldacchino was holding a purple box and one of the other men was holding a pipe in his hand, recalled the witness, una- ble to say who. Her son defended himself with a fire extinguisher while she tried to go back inside, she said. Keith Azzopardi broke down her front door, while his brothers Ryan and Burton vandalised her son's car, she said. Marlon Azzo- pardi threw wine bottles into the house, added the woman, while Burton Azzopardi hurled metal rods into the residence, where the woman's nine-month-old grandchild had been asleep. A number of photos showing the damages caused during the attack were exhibited in court. The health centre doctor who had treated the woman con- firmed on oath that she had suf- fered bruises, certifying the inju- ries as slight. A Transport Malta represent- ative testified that out of all the defendants, only Keith Azzopar- di held a driving licence at the time. The defendants released state- ments to the police, with Ryan Azzopardi saying he had vandal- ised the victim's car as revenge for an incident where the victim had used a fire extinguisher on them during an argument out- side his front door. Baldacchino alleged that the victim had fired shots at his car and damaged its windscreen, "leaving him with no other option." He based his claim of gunfire on the fact that there had been "a smell of some- thing burning," the court noted. Keith Azzopardi claimed to have been driving with his brother Ryan and other fami- ly members when his car's rear windscreen suddenly shattered. Yet, while he had gone to the Zabbar police station after the Burton Azzopardi, charged with the Rabat kidnap together with No Deposit principals, has been convicted of a violent attack on a woman and her son Brothers Burton Azzopardi, left and Zven Azzopardi, together with their siblings, were found guilty of damaging property as part of an armed gathering and breaching the peace. They were both handed a three-year conditional discharge