Weekly News highlights

Public registry director Anthony Geraldi, in his capacity as Registrar of Marriages, last week filed an application requesting the reversal of a court decree permitting marriage banns to be issued in favour of a transsexual.

Early last month, Mr Justice Gino Camilleri, in the Second Hall of the Civil Court, ordered the director of Public Registry to issue the marriage banns for a transsexual who was born a man but was legally declared a woman after surgery.

In his application, Mr Geraldi argued that the change in the Act of Birth of the transsexual, allowing him to change his name and gender, was only intended to protect the right to privacy and to avoid embarrassment.

Such a change, he said, should not mean that the person is considered a female for the purpose of marriage.

Government subsidy cut by Lm4.3 million

The Water Services Corporation has reduced its need for a government subsidy by Lm4.3 million since 2005, while also improving its efficiency and cutting its losses, Public Investments Minister Austin Gatt told Parliament on Monday.

Speaking at the opening of a two-day debate on the financial estimates of the corporation, Dr Gatt said the WSC was next year expected to spend Lm22.2 million as recurrent expenditure and Lm11.6 million as capital.

28 years' jail for immigrant

Tunisian immigrant Hammadi Ben Abdallah Rumdani, 48, was jailed for 28 years on Monday after he admitted to the murder of another Tunisian immigrant, when he hit him on the head with a metal bar at the Hal Safi detention centre over two years ago.

Rumdani pleaded guilty to the murder of Mohsen Ben Khediri Ben Ali at the start of his trial by jury.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, presiding over the case, heard how early last month the defence and prosecution filed a joint application where they agreed that, if a guilty plea was filed, Rumdani would be jailed for 28 years.

Brussels condemns hunting decision

The European Commission on Tuesday criticised the government's decision to allow hunting this spring and will be stepping up legal procedures against Malta.

The decision was taken following an Ornis Committee meeting on Monday afternoon, during which BirdLife Malta officials walked out in protest.

At a news conference on Monday night, Environment Minister George Pullicino said the government was merely abiding by the mandate given to it in the EU referendum, in which the Maltese voted to join the EU.

The Ornis committee has recommended that hunting of quail may be permitted between April 1 and May 10 and of turtledove between April 10 and May 20.

BirdLife Malta has vowed to use all the legal instruments available to it to combat the decision, executive director Tolga Temuge told reporters on Tuesday.

Since the trapping season for finches was not on the agenda, trappers are worried about whether they will be allowed to trap finches this season. But these have been reassured that the Ornis committee will meet again shortly to discuss when the finch-trapping season will open.

On Friday, both the Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FKNK) and BLM shot down new hunting regulations a few hours after they were published in the Government Gazette. A government statement later said their main aim was to curb abusive hunting through the introduction of harsher measures.

To this effect, the regulations introduce the possibility for the courts to permanently revoke a hunter's licence to carry a weapon in the case of a relapser. Moreover, penalties have been doubled and will now go up, in the case of fines, to Lm6,000, and two-year jail terms.

On Thursday, Lino Farrugia, general secretary of the hunters' federation, filed three libel suits on Thursday over comments made in Malta Today and Illum and on a Super 1 Radio programme by Dr Wenzu Mintoff.

Malta applies to join euro

Malta on Tuesday formally asked to join the Eurozone in January and adopt the euro.

The request was made through a letter sent by the Prime Minister, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, and Central Bank Governor Michael Bonello to both the European Commission and the European Central Bank, asking both institutions to set in motion the mechanism to provide Malta with a convergence report on whether it has reached all Eurozone membership conditions, known as the Maastricht criteria.

The news of Malta's application was announced by Dr Gonzi at a press briefing for the international press, in Brussels, on Monday night.

Baker cleared of stabbing charge

Jason Vella, a baker, was cleared of seriously injuring a man with a knife after a magistrate heard two conflicting versions of the event last week.

Vella, 35, of Qormi, was cleared of seriously injuring Alfred Felice and the illegal possession of the knife on January 31, 2006.

Last October, Felice had been given an eight-month jail term suspended for three years after being found guilty of stabbing and slightly injuring Vella during the incident.

Mother accused of assaulting headmaster

A woman on Wednesday was charged with assaulting the headmaster of her daughter's primary school by hurling an umbrella at him.

Magistrate Silvio Meli heard Doris Azzopardi, 35, plead not guilty to threatening, assaulting and throwing the umbrella at Raymond Cassar, headmaster of a Valletta primary school on Tuesday morning.

Ms Azzopardi was granted bail against a personal guarantee of Lm1,000.

New Children's Commissioner

Carmen Zammit is the new Commissioner for Children, succeeding Sonia Camilleri.

Ms Zammit steps into her new role from her position as director of the Department for Family Welfare. She is visiting lecturer at the University of Malta.

Two charged with rape

On Wednesday, two young Libyans - Murad Mohamed Atta and Ashraf Abobakir M. Al Ashab - both 23, were charged with raping a 15-year-old girl and defiling her and her 12-year-old sister last month.

Atta and Al Ashab, residing in St Paul's Bay, pleaded not guilty. They were remanded in custody and prohibited from approaching or contacting the two girls.

High prices hamper tourism

Malta's travel and tourism competitiveness is being hampered by high prices and air transport accessibility, a major international report released on Thursday has shown.

Nevertheless, Malta ranks in 26th place among 124 countries surveyed in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) first ever Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report.

The placing puts the island above countries like Italy, Croatia and Ireland but below competing Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Cyprus and Greece.

Mintoff challenges award at European Court

Former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff has complained to the European Court of Human Rights that the Lm360,000 awarded to him for the de facto expropriation of his Delimara home was "a long way from any form of appropriate recognition of the violations suffered".

Mr Mintoff and his two daughters Anna McKenna and Yana Joan Mintoff Bland filed an application in the Strasbourg court against the government.

Chapel damaged in trenching works

An early 19th century chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Divine Graces in High Street, Sliema, has been damaged following the start of trenching works outside. Wide cracks have appeared along the walls and the dome of the chapel, which was restored two years ago.

The trenching is being done by subcontractors of AX Holdings in preparation for the laying of drainage pipes to service a new five-star hotel belonging to AX Holdings which is being built next door to the chapel.

Lm30,000 watch seized by police missing

Charles Steven Muscat, a prison inmate, last week filed a judicial protest holding the director general of the law courts and the Police Commissioner responsible for a Lm30,000 Rolex wrist watch that went missing after it was seized by the police 13 years ago.

In the protest, filed in the First Hall of the Civil Court, Muscat said he owned the Rolex that had been seized from his Mosta house during a search in 1994 (he had been arraigned and charged with the murder of two men, Emmanuel Sultana and Alfred Grima) and was never given a receipt for it and other items that had been seized.

Over Lm5,000 in damages

The Industrial Tribunal last week ordered a hotel operator to pay former employee John Scicluna Lm5,240 in compensation for his unfair dismissal.

The tribunal, chaired by Carmel Debono, heard that Scicluna had been employed as a maintenance foreman at the Best Western Les Lapins Hotel.

Scicluna claimed that when the hotel stopped operating he was assigned to oversee some works. On August 16, 2005, he tripped on a concrete step and suffered injuries and stopped reporting for work. The Social Security Injuries Board accepted that the injuries had been sustained while Scicluna was at work.

Girl, 12, confesses to assaulting facilitator

A 12-year-old girl was put on probation for two years last week for threatening and assaulting a facilitator by ramming her with a desk at a Cospicua school, last December.

The girl pleaded guilty to threatening, assaulting and slightly injuring the facilitator, Nicoletta DeBrincat, at Erin Serracino Inglott School, on December 15, 2006.

Drug overdose

Ian Galdes, 24, of Qormi, who had served time for his connection with a hold-up at Qormi's Bank of Valletta branch in November 2001, was found dead by his brother at his mother's house in Triq San Guzepp on Thursday afternoon.

The police said on Friday it is suspected Galdes died of a drug overdose.

During the 2001 hold-up by four men, including Galdes, PC Roger Debattista, who was on guard duty there, was shot dead. Andy Calleja, who was subsequently found guilty of shooting the policeman, got a life sentence.

An autopsy on Galdes was held on Friday.