Court told how police intercepted drug parcel

Jurors yesterday heard about an elaborate plan, involving several men, for 2.2 kilograms of cocaine to be imported through the post.

Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Harrison described how the men were caught, as he testified in the trial by jury of Norman Bezzina, 56, of Żebbuġ, also known as Ta’ Ċekċek.

Mr Bezzina, a former consultant in the private secretary’s office of Louis Galea when the latter was Minister for Social Policy, is pleading not guilty to conspiring to import, importing and possession of the drugs on April 23, 2001.

In the first trial by jury of the judicial year, the officer said he was an inspector at the time of the crime and had received confidential information about a package that was about to arrive from Canada containing drugs.

The parcel was intercepted at the Ħamrun post office. It had been declared as holding car spare parts but was found to also contain about one kilogramme of cocaine. Officers later found out that this was the second package to arrive in Malta and in total the two packages contained 2.25 kg of the drug.

The address on the second package was of a property in Marsa owned by Simon Xuereb, who was meant to get €6,990 from Mr Bezzina for the use of his post box, Mr Harrison told the court.

But the police replaced it with an almost identical package and this was picked up by a Maltapost driver, Ruben Scicluna, who presented the notice for it to be collected.

Mr Scicluna was stopped by officers in Qormi where it was established that he was meant to pass it on to a certain Carmel Cassar, a port worker, in the car park of the old airport. Mr Scicluna offered his assistance to the police.

In fact, officers hid in his Maltapost van and he drove to the car park. There Mr Cassar’s son, Mark, picked up the package. The encounter, which took place on April 23, 2001, was filmed and yesterday shown to jurors.

Mark Cassar and his brother Jonathan then passed on the package to one Anthony Gatt, who had in turn been sent by his brother Lawrence, for whom the drugs were intended, the assistant commissioner said.

He said the police had also filmed a meeting during which Mr Bezzina gave Lawrence Gatt a piece of paper, which Mr Harrison said was the post office notice to collect the parcel.

Under interrogation, Mr Bezzina denied giving the piece of paper to Mr Gatt so the police confronted him with the video (which was yesterday also shown to jurors). His response was to say he couldn’t remember what he was doing there and he called Mr Gatt a liar. In his own statement, Mr Gatt had admitted that Mr Bezzina gave him the notice.

The session came to a sudden end slightly earlier than usual after the lawyer from the Attorney General’s Office, Aaron Bugeja, felt ill and asked for a postponement. The trial is expected to resume this morning.

Lawyers Emmanuel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi appeared for Mr Bezzina.