Badawi requests release

The Attorney General is waiting to receive the record of the proceedings against Jamal Badawi before deciding whether to send the case back to the Magistrates' Court or put a stop to it.

Anthony Borg Barthet told The Times yesterday he had exhorted court staff to send the file to him as quickly as possible so that he would be in a position to take a decision without delay but that the file had not yet arrived at his office by yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General said he had been served with a judicial protest filed by Badawi, through his lawyer, Roberto Montalto, yesterday morning.

Badawi, who stands charged with the rape and illegal arrest of a 55-year-old woman in Floriana on June 29, is calling on the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner to remedy the situation by entering a nolle prosequi on the record, arguing that the Magistrates' Court had acknowledged it had enough evidence to discharge him.

He said it had been evident at the very beginning of the case against him that the investigations had been conducted hastily and that there were a lot of discrepancies in the prosecution's case.

He had claimed his innocence right from the start and had given a blood sample for DNA testing despite being told he did not have to, but the police had still opted to arraign him before they obtained the results of the DNA comparison, widely considered to be 99.9 per cent conclusive.

Badawi said that not only had the victim amply shown that she was not in a position to identify him but DNA results had excluded him and a witness had moreover taken the stand to admit to the crime.

The witness had told the court he was sorry that Badawi had been charged with the crime and that he had tried to let police know that they had the wrong man.

But despite all this, the prosecution had insisted that the compilation of evidence against Badawi should proceed and even argued that there were enough reasons to warrant his indictment.

Badawi noted that although the evidence "sealed his innocence", the magistrate had sent the case to the Attorney General with a recommendation to speed up the proceedings.

The magistrate had acknowledged that the admission by a third party meant that Badawi could easily be exonerated but had failed to exercise the powers granted to him by law to discharge him.

This meant that he had been placed in an intolerable situation and was suffering prejudice and it was now up to the Attorney General to remedy the situation by entering a nolle prosequi and ordering Badawi's discharge.

Badawi said he was in the meantime holding the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner responsible for damages.