Thursday, 24th July 2008 - 14:36CET
Spanish tourist admits stealing shoes
An 18-year-old Spanish girl was this morning conditionally discharged after admitting to stealing a pair of shoes from Bershka in Sliema.
During the hearing, before Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani, the defence argued that the arrest of Angela Gonzalez Zamora was a violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Counsel Arthur Azzopardi said that the arrest was unjustified and presented the court with a copy of the Convention which had entered into force on March 19, 1967 and to which Malta is a signatory. He said that when Ms Zamora was arrested, the prosecuting officer should have notified the Spanish Embassy but failed to do so.
Police Inspector Anna Marie Micallef told the court that at first Ms Zamora denied taking the shoes but later admitted to the theft. Inspector Micallef added that she granted Ms Zamora police bail and only held her for two hours during the course of the investigations.
Magistrate Padovani said Article 36 of the Convention did not directly impinge on the validity of the arrest and the arrest was valid.
After taking into consideration the fact that Ms Zamora was a first time offender in Malta as well as Spain Magistrate Padovani conditionally discharged Ms Zamora for one month.
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Comments
I had more respect for you than it seems you merited,if the store manager had tried to forcefully take the shoes from her he would have broken the law , cause to stop her , search and hold her until he takes the shoes he would need to break 3 laws, 1 Illegally stopping a perosn,2 Illegal search of the persons belongings , 3 witholding of a persons freedom without authority to do so, the defence tried to have the case dropped simply because the police did not inform the spanish authorities or thier representative in Malta, ha what would they have said had the poor store manager tried to stop the girl.Some of these so called tourists come to Malta on a 1 euro flight ticket and a couple of euros in thier pockets definately no enough to sustain them for the duration of thier stay. This is happening even with Maltese youths, I know of a person who went to Barcelona and all he had was 50 euroes for the 4 day stay, where did he sleep? In an abondened house with drug addicts sleeping on the floor . He went hungry for 2 days.
“36 (b): if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. ….. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph;”
It appears that Spain is not included in the list of countries where mandatory notification is called for, so the above sub-article is the one that applies in this case.
Perhaps our police officers need a refresher course on consular notification.