Acquittal overturned

A Qormi man who employed a Libyan to sand down his walls was yesterday found guilty of employing a foreigner without a work permit.

Rennie Agius was fined Lm400 by an appeal court, overturning an original acquittal by the Magistrates' Court. The appeal court found that the first court had acquitted Agius on the grounds that he had no intention of breaking the law.

But the Attorney General appealed and Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono ruled that ignorance of the law was no excuse and Agius was bound to check that Ali Sudik Saleh Madi did have a work permit before he employed him to work at his Qormi home.