Complainants in Serena Hotel fraud case still to be questioned

Two years after the owner of the Serena Hotel was charged with defrauding a number of tourists, the court case still seems far from being concluded.

A number of British former hotel guests had vowed to help the police with the case against Joe Vella but they have not yet been given the opportunity to make their complaints directly to the Gozitan court.

Sources said the prosecution and the defence have still to finalise their questions to forward to the British complainants abroad. When this is done, their testimonies can be taken officially in a UK court and sent to Malta for the case to proceed.

The same sources could not specify what was taking so long for the questions to be sent.

Defence lawyer Michael Sciriha said that cases which involve foreign witnesses took long because a lot of documentation had to be passed back and forth. “This case is very complex and it takes time.”

Last year, a police source told The Times that the process of getting foreigners to testify was a logistical nightmare and could take several months “if not more”.

The Gozitan hotel has since changed management and its name is now the Hotel Xlendi.

The Times is informed that it has managed to quell the huge number of complaints it used to receive.

In August 2008, The Sunday Times had reported that around 10 per cent of all tourism-related complaints in the previous year were about the Serena Hotel. The large majority of these were consistent in claiming money was charged from their credit cards without authorisation.

The day the story was carried, Mr Vella was charged with trying to defraud a couple who had just checked in, and further charges followed later after a police investigation.