Appeal court overturns guilty verdict

A Valletta breadseller was yesterday cleared of heroin trafficking after an appeal court overturned "an unsafe and unsatisfactory" guilty verdict reached by a jury.

Chief Justice Noel Arrigo, Mr Justice Joseph Filletti and Mr Justice Patrick Vella dismissed the 8-1 guilty verdict reached by jurors in George Spiteri's trial.

They ruled that in reaching the verdict jurors had given weight to hearsay and uncorroborated circumstantial evidence.

Spiteri, 41, was originally jailed for four years for dealing in heroin between 1994 and 1997.

But he appealed, claiming that jurors had relied on the evidence given by Salvu Gauci and Renald Mallia in finding him guilty.

The judges described the two witnesses as "inconsistent" and noted that they did not really know as a fact that Spiteri was a drug trafficker but had drawn the conclusion themselves.

Gauci said he saw Louis Galea speak to Spiteri a few hours before he saw Galea with heroin in his hands.

Mallia had mentioned that he had seen some friends walk in Spiteri's direction and come back with drugs.

But the three judges noted that this evidence was circumstantial and was not corroborated by any other evidence since the prosecution had failed to summon Galea or Mallia's friends to testify.

For this reason, jurors could not have reached a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt.

The judges ruled that, although it was very rare for an appeal court to alter a jury's verdict, in this case, it was clear that the evidence presented in court could not have led to Spiteri's guilt.

Senior counsel to the republic Dr Mark Said prosecuted.

Dr Giannella Caruana Curran and Dr Emmanuel Mallia appeared for Spiteri.