Guilty of stealing judge's priceless works of art

A thief who was first acquitted of the burglary of priceless works of art from the home of Judge Giovanni Bonello in Valletta was yesterday jailed for seven years after being found guilty in a retrial.

The case of Ian Farrugia, who had been charged and then acquitted in connection with the high-profile 1994 attempted murder of Richard Cachia Caruana, who at the time was personal assistant to the Prime Minister, has been protracted.

Mr Farrugia had been cleared of stealing the paintings, which included a Caravaggio, from the judge's house in April 2004 after Magistrate Anthony Vella ruled that the circumstantial evidence produced was not enough to convict the accused. The magistrate ruled that fingerprints found on a plastic bag used to cover the paintings was not enough to find him guilty.

The Attorney General appealed, arguing that the first court's decision should be declared null because it had not allowed the prosecution to summon an important witness who had a case pending.

The Court of Criminal Appeal then ruled that the Magistrates' Court had made two serious mistakes. If a witness had a pending case, then the magistrate should have postponed the hearing until the proceedings were finished. In a second mistake, the magistrate had declared that the prosecution had closed its case when it was up to the prosecution to do so.

In view of these procedural errors, Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono had declared the first court's judgment null and void and sent the case back to the Magistrates' Court to be reheard.

In his judgment yesterday, Magistrate Silvio Meli ruled that the prosecution had produced scientific proof of Mr Farrugia's involvement in the crime and also proved that he had given a painting to an accomplice to keep under his bed.

The magistrate jailed him for seven years.

An accomplice, Joseph Portelli, was jailed for four years in 2006 after the court found him guilty of handling the stolen works of art but not guilty of stealing them.

When Mr Portelli was arrested, he initially denied knowledge of the paintings. However, during a search at his house and two garages, the police noticed that a wall at the back of a garage had a different level of tar than the rest of the walls. And when compared to other garages, the garage was also narrower by about two feet.

As the wall sounded hollow, two bricks were removed and in the space between the two walls the police found the paintings that were stolen from Judge Bonello's house.