Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/517560
8 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 27 MAY 2015 News Nikki Dimech bribery sentence 'null and void' FORMER Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech is to be retried on a charge of bribery, after a Court of Appeal declared that his one-year sentence in prison was "null and void". Dimech was represented by a new legal team for his appeal, led by Edward Gatt and Mark Vas- sallo. In the original sentence, Di- mech was found not guilty of threatening Police Inspector An- gelo Gafà. He had been accused of de- manding a bribe for the salary ne- gotiated with the council's former contracts manager, Stephen Bu- hagiar. Buhagiar, 43, from Swieqi, claimed Dimech solicited him for bribes of 5-10% on the value of his contract. Buhagiar is a former driver of Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo, who himself had been close to Nikki Dimech during his time on the committee of Sliema Wanderers FC. Buhagiar had claimed he was sacked from his job by Dimech af- ter refusing to pay up. Buhagiar's contract had been terminated by eight votes to one in the Sliema council. Later he alleged to PN secre- tary-general Paul Borg Olivier, minister Chris Said and local councils director-general Martin Bugelli that his contract was ter- minated for refusing to kick back payments to Dimech. The one-year sentence was handed down by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit. At the time, the Nationalist Party had said it was "proved right" after sacking Dimech from the party, and accused Labour of giving him refuge by according him airtime on Labour's One TV. On his part, Dimech has claimed in a separate court case that former PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier had instructed him to award a waste recycling contract for the Sliema council to Green MT, a firm owned by the GRTU, the small business chamber, rather than to its rival, GreenPak. Prostitute cleared of stealing €11,000 from client A 34-year-old woman was jailed for one year for the crime of loi- tering for prostitution purposes, but was cleared of stealing some €11,000 from a client after a court ruled the charge was not suffi- ciently proven. The woman's name is not being published due to the state of her mental health. She was accused of stealing the money back in May 2013, when her victim filed a report at the Sliema police station early at 2:30am. The man claimed he was driving home at 1:30am when the woman, whom he knew, signalled him to stop. The two then agreed on a price for sex, and he drove the woman to her San Gwann apart- ment. The client paid her €20 for 10 minutes, but an envelope carrying €15,000 in cash – money he had to deposit for his business partner – fell out of his pocket. The woman picked up the envelope for him. After dropping off the woman, the man realised that €11,000 were missing from the envelope. He filed his police report after failing to locate the woman at her Gzira apartment. In court, the woman said she had long been acquainted with the man, who had lent her money to buy drugs. She denied stealing his money. Her mother also testified, say- ing that two of her children took drugs and fearful of being robbed, often slept with her wallet under the pillow. She said her daughter had attended three drug rehabili- tation programmes. Psychiatrist Joseph Spiteri also testified that the woman had been his patient for about five years, and that he had seen her at the Corradino Correctional Facility and at Mount Carmel Hospital. She suffered from an eating dis- order as well as depression – as a result of which she took drugs. Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Her- rera noted that the prosecution failed to prove the theft charge beyond reasonable doubt, saying the man's version had inconsist- encies about the amount of cash stolen. The police even brought his business partner to testify, and the man did not produce evidence as to where he was before meet- ing her. The magistrate cleared the woman of theft but found her guilty of loitering and relapsing – the woman had some 20 previous convictions on her record, neces- sitating an effective jail term. Suspended jail term for involuntarily causing death of 10-year-old A 27-year-old man got a one- year jail term, suspended for three years, for involuntarily causing the death of 10-year- old Nicole Zahra, in a traf- fic accident on Hal Far road in 2010. He was also fined €2,000. Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera ruled that though Mariano D'Amato, 27 of Zur- rieq, was driving at an unac- ceptable speed, the accident was not entirely his fault. She said the girl 's father failed to keep a proper lookout when he drove out from a side road and into the main road where the collision took place at 9:45pm. D'Amato was driving along Hal Far Road in the direction of Gudja with his friend sitting in the front passenger seat and his girlfriend at the back, after having spent the afternoon out at a few bars. Peter Zahra was driving his Maruti Jeep out of a side road, with his wife Pauline in the front passenger seat, and their daughter Nicole at the back. There were no seat belts in the back of the jeep. He drove out of the side road, believing the car was still far from the junction, but as he drove out D'Amato crashed into the back of the jeep. Zahra got out of the car, and lifted his daughter, uncon- scious and with no visible in- juries, from the jeep. Another driver stopped to give the child first aid. She died in hos- pital days later suffering from a fractured skull and intracra- nial haemorrhage. Magistrate Scerri Herrera said that while D'Amato was driving at the reckless speed of some 147 km per hour, Za- hra had a role in the accident, having failed to keep a proper lookout. Driver-less bus injures two TWO bus drivers were seriously injured when they were hit by a driver-less bus at the Valletta ter- minus yesterday at 9:30 am. Police said that the bus was parked in the terminus when it started moving backwards to- wards a construction site. Two men drivers, a 31-year-old from Zabbar and a 34-year-old from Birkirkara, tried to hop onto the bus to prevent an ac- cident, but the bus hit them and went on to crash into two parked cars, a concrete block and a bar- rier where construction works are taking place. The drivers were taken to Mater Dei Hospital, where they were certified as having suffered seri- ous but not life-threatening inju- ries. Police investigations are ongoing Nikki Dimech End of the journey – the bus came to a stop after injuring two, and hitting two cars and a concrete block