Court finds no link between alleged thief and stolen items

A 23-year-old man from Georgia was yesterday cleared of stealing two MP3 players and a €50 note from a classroom after a magistrate ruled that the police had failed to prove the connection between the man and the stolen items.

Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona cleared Ilia Asashvili of stealing the cash and the MP3 players from Maria Regina School, in Hamrun, on July 26.

On evaluating the evidence the magistrate noted that the stolen items had been inside the bags of foreign students who attended the school and the bags were left unguarded in the classroom during break time.

Mr Asashvili had been apprehended in the school grounds, when he was not a student there.

However, except for some money which included Russian currency, nothing else was found on the young man, the magistrate noted.

"The prosecution was obliged to prove, first and foremost, a causal connection between the thefts and the accused. The evidence fails even remotely to establish and determine such causal connection.

"The only certain thing in the circumstances is that the accused was chased in the school grounds, apprehended, and handed over to the police. Nor does the evidence show that the money which was found on the accused had any connection to that declared to have been stolen," the magistrate added.

The magistrate therefore cleared him of all charges.

Police Inspector Mario Bonello prosecuted.

Lawyers Leslie Cuschieri and Daniela Mangion were defence counsel.