Gozo warden killer starts legal case for acquittal

The man serving a life sentence for killing a Gozitan warden has claimed a breach of human rights because he had no access to a lawyer during the police interrogation in which he incriminated himself.

The 64-year-old Gozitan bus driver, Ġanni Attard, known as Il-Muħa, was jailed last year after jurors found him guilty of the brutal murder of 47-year-old warden Fortunata Spiteri, the motive being too many parking tickets.

Ms Spiteri was slain on a dark road which leads to Għarb on August 10, 2001. Mr Attard never admitted to the crime but in his statement he confirmed that he was on the scene at the time of the murder.

Mr Attard was the second person to stand trial, after Benny Attard was jailed for 30 years two years ago after admitting his involvement in the crime.

Benny Attard testified he held the woman as Ġanni stabbed her and had been promised some €11,650 for helping out.

In handing down judgment, Mr Justice Michael Mallia said the accused had spent his life “challenging authority” and took into consideration a crime committed by Mr Attard in 1975 in which he had caused injuries to his father which resulted in his death.

In his constitutional application yesterday, Ġanni Attard took advantage of a recent landmark ruling that a suspect’s human rights had been violated when the police took his statement without giving him access to a lawyer. Mr Attard asked the court to declare that his trial had been unfair precisely because he had no access to a lawyer during the police investigations.

Defence lawyer Jose’ Herrera cited three previous judgments where the Constitutional Court had already declared a breach of rights in similar circumstances.

Dr Herrera’s application comes hot on the heels of a historical judgment by Magistrate Marseann Farrugia, who ruled last week that a police statement found to be in breach of human rights should not be considered by the adjudicator and acquitted a man facing drug trafficking charges because the only evidence against him was his police statement.

The significance of Mr Attard’s application takes on even more weight because so far no remedy has been given in cases that have reached a trial by jury let alone when someone has actually been convicted.

Criminal lawyer Joseph Giglio, speaking after the decree handed down by Magistrate Farrugia last week, questioned the implications for jury trials and argued that jurors would not be able to make a mental distinction between a statement that was in breach of human rights and one that was not.