Package found to contain puzzles, books...and machine guns!

How come, a case of this kind took 8 yrs for Court to decide ?? The fact that the person concerned made a false declaration, the fine attached is ridiculous. ONLY IN MALTA....Mickey Mouse.

Mr. Butigieg, you made a very good point. What if the mentioned machineguns were deactivated and rendered inert?????? On the other hand this article mentioned absolutely nothing about the machine guns being deactivated. Describing such items without the fine details can put things in a completely different dimension. I think that the journalist would not ignore something of that importance from the article. I tend to disagree about describing firearms for collections as mostly deactivated. There are huge numbers of collections with fully active firearms all around the world and having these "firearms" imported from overseas one can not assume that they were deactivated. It is crucial to keep the firearm in its original state when used for collection purposes.

Deactivated guns are not classed as firearms in MOST states within the US and are just as good as a plumbing pipe or a piece of lumber (in those regions).

Let’s assume that they were deactivated (we don’t know for sure), does that mean that the defendant should not declare the items? Not knowing the law is not a good enough excuse for most judges. If it can be proven that the defendant tried to cheat the system by evading taxes & duty, he'd better have a good convincing story so they go a bit lenient on him. If the items will be displayed during his trial he will likely have a hard time unless, they are just a lump of metal and wood with some historical significance.

This incident took place in October 1998? If this is correct, does it take 10 years to resolve this case?!?

What I find most disturbing here is that it took just under 10 years to bring to court. Perhaps it is about time that "night court" was started - to have an offence hanging over you for this length of time is really a bit much. This case sounds like it could have been put together quite easily in less than a month (hardly much in the way of investigation required - just a couple of statements under oath which could have been taken by a member of the Police Force and submitted for prosecution). Even allowing for passing of papers around this should have been dealt with within six months maximum.
Did he get to keep the guns?

Export of any fire arm from the US requires an export license to control arms movement. This license is managed by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and to obtain approval, the applicant MUST endorse the license of the recipient country in this case, Malta.

My question though is not only about the importation method into Malta, but a machine gun (or so this news paper described it "???") have a higher restriction classification especially in the state of New York. Was this registered to the owner when he resided in the stare of New York?

Mr Tabone-Adami & Mr Fattuhi.

My previous comment included the question "He was fined only Lm166?" before the word "Ridiculous".

Seems a moderator decided that question was superfluous.

Hang on Hang on,

The article does not mention if they are functioning machine guns or collector's items that are often disabled.

I mention this because I have a relative who had to register a weapon - a cannon. This "cannon" was nothing other then a brass decoration, completely non functioning, never functioning in fact. Little more then a piece of brass 3 feet long.

If he thought there was no licence to apply or tax to pay ,Why it was registered that it contains,PUZZLES,BOOKS,& CLOTHS,but not firearms????????

I'm even more worried about the fine of €388 (Lm166.52), peanuts in today's terms, which implies that there is not much of a deterrent to risk doing such a thing.

What? Fined only a measly 388 Euros? How's that for 'ridiculous". He should have been fined one hundred times that amount - at least!

He thought there wasn't any license to apply for?

Ridiculous.