The trial by jury of Ronnie Azzopardi, 31, of Cospicua, accused of the attempted murder of Giovanni Spiteri in 2003, should go ahead as planned if no other objections are brought forward, a court ruled yesterday.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono decided that if no other preliminary appeals are filed then the trial should go ahead as planned.

Mr Azzopardi is accused of trying to kill the brother of a man who had been found guilty of the murder of Mr Azzopardi's brother. Jason Azzopardi was murdered in October 2001 by Melchior Spiteri.

The alleged attempted murder is said to have taken place near the waste recycling plant in Marsascala as Mr Spiteri was driving a car.

Mr Azzopardi's defence team had asked that the bill of indictment be declared null because of defects in a police report. It also objected that a witness should testify, arguing that his evidence is allegedly hearsay and so inadmissible in court. Finally, the defence argued that the evidence by the same witness they were objecting to is character based and could, therefore, throw a bad light on their client.

Mr Justice Galea Debono threw out the first request ruling that, in the opinion of the court, there were no defects in the bill of indictment.

As to the other points raised by the defence, the court said it would exercise control on the testimony if and when such a witness was heard.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.