Probation order changed into jail term, fine

A Fgura man has been jailed for three years and fined Lm500 on appeal for the possession of heroin for sale, in lieu of a two-year probation order for simple possession handed down by the Magistrates' Court.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, in the Court of Criminal Appeal, found Richard Borg, 31, guilty of the possession of heroin in circumstances denoting it was not for Borg's personal use and described the first court's judgment as "inconsistent".

Borg was originally cleared of heroin possession for sale within 100 metres of a place where youths met on and before December 20, 1996.

But the Attorney General appealed, claiming that Borg had admitted buying Lm25 worth of heroin, dividing it into six packets he intended to sell for Lm10 each. He also admitted to taking two Lm10 packets of heroin a day.

Yet the Magistrates' Court had ruled that since no forensic tests had been carried out on the drug it was not proven that it was, in fact, heroin, and therefore the charges had not been sufficiently proven.

But Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono noted that the Magistrates' Court's judgment was inconsistent in that it accepted Borg's statement that it was heroin, to find him guilty of the simple possession of the drug, but then dismissed it to find him not guilty of the possession with intent to sell.

In establishing the punishment, Mr Justice Galea Debono noted Borg's criminal record and that he had ignored the opportunities granted to him by the courts to change his ways.