A man was yesterday fined Lm600 and banned from driving for a year for his contribution to a traffic accident in which he crashed into a wall at high speed.
Alfalah Emad Eddin Salem was found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, driving dangerously and refusing to take a breath test after an accident on the Sta Venera by-pass on July 10, 2000.
The Magistrates' Court heard how Salem was driving along the Sta Venera by-pass on July 10, 2000, at about 8.45 p.m. when he lost control of his car and crashed into the wall.
A doctor who went to his aid said the defendant's behaviour swung between calm and violent and his urine tested positive for morphine although this did not necessarily prove that Salem had taken heroin.
Salem was in fact acquitted of heroin possession after Magistrate Noel Cuschieri ruled it had not been sufficiently proven.
Police Inspector Alexander Miruzzi prosecuted.