Appeal court ruling paves way for former Chief Justice's trial

The way has been paved for the trial by jury of former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo following the conclusion of an appeal by the three men who bribed him.

The notorious Mario Camilleri, known as Imnieħru, and his son Pierre were jailed for four years and three years respectively for bribing Dr Arrigo and former judge Patrick Vella in August 2002.

A third man, Anthony Grech Sant, was also jailed for three years for being an accomplice in the bribery of the judges.

Dr Vella has already served time, leaving prison on July 11 last year. He was sentenced to two years (which translate into 16 months in prison terms) after, in March 2007, he pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe of €23,000 for reducing from 16 to 12 years a jail term handed down to Mario Camilleri for drug trafficking.

The former Chief Justice will be facing similar charges.

Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano yesterday confirmed the jail terms of both Mr Camilleri and his son and reduced Mr Grech Sant's three-year term to 20 months after taking into consideration his clean police record and that his involvement was limited to Dr Arrigo.

The Criminal Court of Appeal reviewed 3,000 documents from the compilation of evidence before arriving at its decision, the Chief Justice said.

In their appeal, the three men argued there was no evidence to suggest that the two former judges had in some way failed to carry out what they were in duty bound to do and so the three men could not be found guilty.

Defence lawyer Joe Brincat argued that it was a contradiction in terms to say that a third judge had carried out his duty but not the other two, as the law had given the discretion to the judges to either reduce or increase the punishment on appeal.

But the Chief Justice deemed this argument simplistic and it ignored the essence of corruption that the case was dealing with. The adjudicator was obliged to decide upon the case solely on the evidence in front of him and let nothing external influence his decision.

Mr Camilleri and his son had called into question the credibility of Joseph Zammit, also known as Is-Sej, a key witness in the case against them and who was also jailed for two years after admitting to his involvement.

The appeals court said that Mr Zammit was consistent throughout his testimony and, although he had quite a criminal record, there was no reason not to believe him.

Mr Grech Sant played down his role in the case regarding the former Chief Justice, saying he had simply passed on the message that the two men had wanted to offer €23,000 in exchange for a reduced sentence.

But the appeals court insisted that such a role still made him an accomplice in the case.

After reviewing the documents of the lengthy proceedings, the appeals court reduced Mr Grech Sant's jail term from three years to 20 months and confirmed the Camilleris' jail term.

Lawyer Elaine Rizzo, representing the Attorney General's Office, prosecuted.