Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1547077
17 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 OCTOBER 2026 NEWS conspiracy awarded €12,000 after 21-year wait 'Absolutely nothing was done' The judge said that the case was no simple one, but said its complexity "does not justi- fy the passage of 21 years before a final decision was given". The prosecution's conduct, he said, had dragged things out "not only in the initial phase of the proceedings, where per- haps one would still be inves- tigating and examining the case, but also in the following years, when the prosecution was supposed to have a clear idea of the witnesses and the evidence it wanted to bring". "Throughout the criminal proceedings there emerge many more circumstances of delay like this, which do not appear to be justified," he said. The State, he added, had brought "no argument or proof of justification" for them. The record bears this out. In 2008, a magistrate noticed the file had never been sent to the Attorney General as the law required, and the compilation of evidence had to start all over again. Borg, however, waived his right to have the witnesses heard all over again. The bill of indictment was filed in October 2009. When Magistrate Francesco Depas- quale eventually acquitted Mr Borg in 2018, he said that be- tween 15 October 2009 and 29 December 2014, "absolutely nothing was done". Even after the case was sent back down to the Magistrates' Court, it barely moved. In 2015 the court warned that "this case is a very old one and needs to be closed". It gave the prosecution three weeks to say what evidence it had left. None was produced at the next sitting. Over 28 sittings, the prose- cution called four witnesses. Three of them declined to tes- tify. The Attorney General ap- pealed. The appeal was argued in November 2018, then sat waiting until it was reassigned to another judge in January 2023. The courts were not let off the hook either. Obtaining evidence from Italy "could certainly have been far more expeditious". The roughly five years the case spent in each of the Criminal Court and the Court of Appeal "was in fact also excessive, especially when this delay does not appear to have had anything to do with the applicant". "All this also shows the judicial author- ity's share in the delay," the judge said, finding that Borg had "caused no sig- nificant delay". "It is true that there is not, and should not be, any time limit to be observed in proceedings before the courts," he said. "However, this should never mean that those proceedings should drag on for nothing, or that any de- lay is excused." "Any excessive delay is very significant, so much so that even a mere few days can be of great import in a person's life." The lawyer they never had Like his co-accused, Mr Borg was questioned by police in August 2002 without a law- yer. Suspects had no right to consult a lawyer before police questioning until February 2010. For years, the Constitutional Court held that such a state- ment breached fair-trial rights only if it had actually harmed the accused. One of the lead- ing judgments setting out that approach was brought by Charles Muscat, one of the in- mates accused of running this very plot. That changed in 2016, when the European Court of Hu- man Rights ruled in an unre- lated case, Borg v Malta, that a blanket denial of a lawyer was in itself a breach of fair-trial rights. Maltese courts soon began throwing out such statements. In this case, the statements had been the backbone of the prosecution. Then-Magistrate Depasquale laid the blame at the State's door, in a passage repeated in several judgments arising from the case. He said the court had to as- sess the accused's involve- ment on evidence that "was drastically reduced as a result of a failure on the part of the executive authorities of the time". Those authorities, he said, "refused for entire years to introduce the right, legis- lated but never made effective, for the accused to be assisted by a lawyer". "In the present case, all the statements were made in vi- olation of that right, and are therefore totally inadmissi- ble," he wrote. "And whoever failed to in- troduce that right enshrined in law must shoulder his re- sponsibilities." With the statements out, the court turned to the intercept- ed calls. In Borg's case, it found they dealt with boats, cars, the weather and whether the sea would be rough. They con- tained "no concrete proof in connection with the charges". Nor, the court said in Bonni- ci's, had any proof ever been produced of who owned the speedboat. One acquittal after another Mona Camilleri, Mario Camilleri's wife, was acquitted in April 2016. John Camilleri, Leli's brother, followed in September 2017. In his case, the magistrate said he was "morally convinced" of his in- volvement. But without the statement, the evidence fell short of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The Strasbourg-led change in the law, he said, "helped the ac- cused a great deal". In June 2018, alongside Borg and Bonnici, then-Magistrate Depasquale acquitted Yvette Muscat, Trudy Testa, Pierre Camilleri, Carmen Armeni, Sylvana Bugeja, Juma Said Karfoosh, Suzanne Abela and Albert Bugeja. Isaac Chetcu- ti was cleared of conspiracy but fined €2,000 over a small amount of cannabis. The Attorney General ap- pealed against most of those acquittals, and it was turned down. Those who were convicted Leli Camilleri, already serv- ing 35 years for the 1995 bombing of the home of then- Drug Squad inspector Michael Cassar, admitted the charg- es. In December 2015 he was jailed for a further 11 years and fined €20,000. Days later, Alfred Bugeja was jailed for seven years. Mario Camilleri was mur- dered in July 2013, together with his 21-year-old son. Emanuel Borg had asked for compensation for the work and income he lost over the years, but the judge turned that down, finding the loss- es neither proved nor quan- tifiable. The €12,000 he was awarded is for the breach of his rights alone. That breach, he said, had worked against Borg "in the enjoyment of his rights, and more than that, of his dignity". Then-Magistrate Depasquale laid the blame at the State's door, in a passage repeated in several judgments arising from the case.