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Please send CV to: Dougall Tobacco Mfg Ltd, 101, 'St.Anthony', Lanzon Street, Tarxien, TXN1811 Court rejects PL request to suspend PN election case Matthew agius Ms Justice Lorraine schembri Orland has ruled that the Labour Party would not be permitted to appeal her decision against the PL being given more time to summon its final witness, An- thony Gellel from the Electoral Commission, who had not been successfully notified for the last sitting. The ruling was given in the case relating to vote-counting errors in the 2013 election. Labour deputy leader Toni Abela yesterday morning filed an application challenging last Friday's decree. When the sitting resumed in the afternoon, the court said it was amazed by the assertion made in the application that the PL could have summoned the witness that day (yesterday). Former PN secretary general Paul Borg Olivier, appearing for the PN in his legal capacity, ar- gued that the court should grant this permission only if it felt it just. In order to do this, the court must analyse the case from the time the Labour party joined the case, he said. The court had fixed the date for the last witness evidence of the PL eight weeks before, he said. Looking at the timeline of the case since the PL was granted legal standing in the case, Borg Olivier said it was clear that the PL's intention was to draw out proceedings as long as possible. He told the court he did not think it would be just for an ap- peal to be allowed when the ap- pellant had all the time in the world to notify witnesses. 29th January was the cut off date for the last opportunity for it to summon its witnesses, he add- ed. Furthermore, Gellel could have been notified through other, un- official means. The court rejected the request to suspend proceedings. It also noted that the cut off date had passed and the time dedicated to the sitting had not been utilised well. The court said that the PL had not done what it should or could have notified Gellel and had failed to explain the relevance of the witness to the case. The case was put off for April, with a sentence to be delivered after Easter. In the day's earlier sitting, the court accused the Labour Party of "putting the cart before the horse" by requesting it to sus- pend the proceedings pending the outcome of a decision of the Constitutional Court. Last May, the First Hall of the Civil Court in its Constitution- al jurisdiction had delivered a judgement on the issue, but this was subsequently declared null, due to the fact that the Labour Party had not been included as a party to proceedings. Prime Minister Joseph Mus- cat had appealed the Electoral Commission's decision in Feb- ruary 2015 to grant the Nation- alist Party an additional two seats, after the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction declared that the PN should take two additional seats to hold 32 seats in parlia- ment, with Labour retaining its 39 seats. Opposition leader simon Bu- suttil had immediately called on the Electoral Commission to re- spect the court's decision but the judgement was appealed. Following May's judgement, the PN filed the case anew. Witness casts doubts on source of Palumbo dockyard noise Mat thew agius A senglea resident has cast doubt on the origin of an un- bearable noise which an associ- ation of residents is blaming on a ship at the Palumbo shipyard. Magistrate Aaron Bugeja con- tinued hearing witnesses in the case against the Palumbo facil- ity. The court began hearing evidence on Monday, a day after a criminal complaint was filed by a group of residents from the senglea Residents Association, who claim that the incessant noise coming from the facility has made their lives a misery. The police believe the source of the noise to be a generator aboard the vessel Hamal and have charged the vessel 's cap- tain and engine superintendent with disturbing the repose of the residents during the night. Palumbo director Joseph Calleja is also charged. But Jesmond Bonnici, who lives "a corner away from the senglea bastions," presented an alternative possibility when he took the witness stand yesterday afternoon. "Recently a ship called Grande Argentina came into the ship- yard and that's when the sound of the generator started," he said. "I've lived there for 20 years and I know what's going on in there." Once the ship was shifted to dock six, the noise abated some- what, said the witness. Asked about the Hamal, he said it was a distance away from his house. The Grande Argentina was moored to the jetty of dock six, he said. "The sound was pene- trating. It wasn't something you could just shut out." He claimed to be "99% certain" that the noise was coming from the Grande Argentina, adding that the plume of smoke from the smokestack was evidence of this. "The other noises were workers' noises, but this noise would go on for 24 hours. It nev- er stops. It drives you crazy." Yesterday morning and after- noon saw two policemen from the local police station testif y to having been sent to the ship- yard to investigate complaints that the facility was causing a night time disturbance. Whilst speaking to a security guard, the ranking officer said that he heard noise "that sounded a dis- tance away." He had been told by the guard that the sound was coming from a generator, the of- ficer said. The sergeant explained that he had investigated two reports, one received at 11pm and the other at around 1:15am. "The second time I didn't hear the machinery sounds that I heard the first time... The second time I only heard the generator." Defence law yer Abigail Bugeja asked the witness whether he heard the noise at the entrance of the shipyard. He had only heard it after passing through the gates, he said. Law yer Matthew Brincat, also for the defence, asked the officer whether he heard it as he ap- proached the ships. The witness said he had not. He had started to hear sounds when he was around 50 metres away from Dock 5. He could not hear the noises from Dock 6, he said. "He was asleep," a man in the public gallery could be heard remark- ing. such was the disturbance that one woman claimed that she had resorted to using sleeping pills. senglea resident Rita Vassallo testified that the noise had rat- tled her glass balcony door. "It sounded like a car running," and was coming from the direction of the dockyard. she could iden- tif y the direction it was coming from but not what caused it. "What I know is that the glass would vibrate. Then I'd take a sedative and go to sleep." The police had spoken to Pa- lumbo director Angelo De- pasquale over the phone and ordered him to stop the dis- turbance. The sergeant de- scribed the noise he had heard as "sounding like machinery working in the distance." As the officers were driving to the shipyard, near the Ghajn Dwieli tunnel, he could hear hammer- ing sounds, he added, explain- ing that the tunnel is directly above the shipyard. Police paid the site a second visit, following a report from an English-speaking caller who claimed that the noise was still ongoing. But this time there were no banging sounds, just a hum, which he said was com- ing from a shipborne generator. This humming noise was barely noticeable from the Ghajn Dw- ieli tunnel, said the witness. The officer said he saw the gen- erator at the back of the vessel. It was a large generator on the aft portion of the tug. The hum- ming noise was coming from its direction. "You could hear it, in the night time silence." Cross-examined by Bugeja, the officer said he had not heard the sounds from the station and had not called at the home of the complaining resident to hear the noise for himself. The officer had never seen a ship's generator before, he ad- mitted, and neither had the po- lice verified whether there had been any other generators in the area. He had heard the hum of a generator however. It was com- ing from the direction of Dock 5, where the tugboat Hamal was berthed, he said. The officer could not say whether there had been any oth- er ships in the dockyard at the time. Bugeja told the court that the vessel was due to sail today and a crew change was scheduled to take place. "If something were to happen on the ship at the moment, there is no captain or technical superintendent on board and there could be very serious consequences." The case continues this after- noon. Libyan with fake French passport arrested at MIA Mat thew agius A man who arrived from Libya yesterday on Medavia's first di- rect f light to Malta in several months has been jailed for pass- port offences. Ali Abdulrraziq Alhadi Ara- rah, 28, from Tripoli was ar- rested at the airport yesterday when immigration officials no- ticed that his French passport was false. During his arrest, however, the Libyan then produced his genuine Libyan passport and at- tempted to claim asylum. Magistrate Ian Farrugia hand- ed the man an effective six- month prison sentence. Inspector Victor Aquilina prosecuted, while law yer Chris Chircop provided legal aid.