Drugs case to be re-decided

A man who was jailed for two years will have the case decided again after the testimony of a witness was not recorded in the acts of the proceedings.

The witness will now testify again and the court will review his evidence before handing down a second judgment.

Charles Spiteri was jailed last May for possessing cocaine in June 2002 in circumstances denoting it was not for his exclusive use. His defence lawyer, Arthur Azzopardi, filed an appeal asking the Criminal Court of Appeal to revoke the judgment because a particular witness had not been recorded.

He said that after going through the proceedings page by page he noticed that the testimony of Noel Azzopardi had not been transcribed or recorded. Neither did the judgement make any reference to his testimony.

Appearing for the Attorney General, lawyer Nadine Sant argued there was other, more powerful evidence that the court could have used to draw its conclusion of guilt.

It was not excluded that the magistrate had used his own "judge's notes" of the testimony given by the witness and the lack of transcription had no consequence on the judgment, she argued.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono said he could not exclude that the magistrate had taken notes and, therefore, considered the substance of the testimony.

However, since there was no reference made to the witness in the judgment, the appeals court was completely lacking in the benefit of knowing what the witness had said.

The court could not therefore review the evidence in its entirety and because of this "serious procedural error", the judge ordered that Mr Azzopardi testify again before the Magistrates' Court, which would then review his evidence and pass judgment again.