Jury clears Safi woman of arson

Emily Muscat was yesterday unanimously acquitted of two counts of arson in a trial by jury, and greeted the news with a cry of joy as tears ran down her cheeks.

John Vella and Anthony Felice, who had filed guilty pleas at the start of the trial, were jailed for four and three years.

Muscat, 44, of Safi was found not guilty, after three and a half hours of deliberations, of setting fire to the door of two flats in the block known as Ta' Xbiex Palace, Gzira on October 30, 1994.

But Vella, 50, of Tarxien, was jailed for four years while Felice, 36, of San Gwann was jailed for three years.

In handing down judgment, Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono noted that the two men had filed a guilty plea at an early stage of the trial and that the proceedings had been unnecessarily prolonged for nearly nine years.

He also noted that the men had since followed a drug rehabilitation programme but remarked on "the serious nature of the crime and the danger to which innocent people had been exposed".

Mr Justice Galea Debono also compared the men's criminal record and noted that Felice's convictions dated back to 1987 while Vella's went back to 1976.

And while Felice had admitted his involvement at the initial stages of the investigations, Vella had initially denied involvement in the case.

The judge ordered that the time the men spent in preventive custody was to be deducted from their jail term.

Senior counsel to the republic Mark Said prosecuted.

Dr Joseph Giglio appeared for Muscat, Dr José Herrera appeared for Vella and Dr Joseph Mifsud and Dr Malcolm Mifsud were legal aid to Felice.