The so-called queen of Corradino prison, Josette Bickle, yesterday filed an appeal against the judgement that had shone a bright light on the ease with which drugs were being smuggled into prison, shocking the nation.

She held that four of the prosecution’s main witnesses lied through their teeth and she asked for the guilty verdict to be overturned.

“Everything was orchestrated”- Josephine Bickle

The 42-year-old Valletta resident was last month jailed for 12 years and fined €23,000 for trafficking heroin in prison between 2006 and 2008.

The three-day trial revealed what life was like behind bars and the extent to which inmates would go to obtain drugs.

Mr Justice Michael Mallia’s judgement was an indictment of the prison system itself. He called the juror’s verdict “not only a verdict against Josette Bickle but against the system which allowed her to operate with so much impunity for so long”.

“The large number of visits allowed to Josette Bickle on top of what other prisoners got, and the ease with which drugs used to enter her division and come into her possession cannot but indicate collusion with authorities,” Mr Justice Mallia said in the damning judgement.

Jurors heard how she trafficked drugs in prison, treated other prisoners as her slaves and built up a stash of items like television sets and mobile phones as the gains from her drug dealing – earning her the title “queen” of Corradino from one of the witnesses.

Ms Bickle yesterday argued her punishment was “excessive” and asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to overturn the guilty verdict and clear her of the charges. Alternatively she asked for a more lenient punishment.

She argued that the jurors made a mistaken evaluation of the evidence and that the prosecution’s case was based on the testimonies of four witnesses who had been “blatantly and manifestly lying”.

Owing to “sensationalism” which was “the major feature” of the prosecution’s case, the jurors had been misled and had given weight to what was probably irrelevant to the case.

The fact that these four witnesses corroborated each other in their untruths showed that “everything had been orchestrated”, she said, adding that she was the victim of their plan.

Ms Bickle insisted that under no circumstances could she have been “legally and reasonably” found guilty of the charges brought against her. Various arguments raised by the prosecution were based on assertions which had not been confirmed.

Her lawyers also raised technical and legal issues, quoting the law which states that a party producing a witness could not attack his credibility.

Prison warder Alison Sghendo was one of the prosecution witnesses and yet the prosecutor, in winding up the case, attacked her evidence to undermine her credibility.The defence had contested this during the trial but the Mr Justice Mallia, in his address to jurors, said the prosecution was justified in discrediting its own witness.Ms Bickle said this was “an incorrect interpretation of the law” and had led to “a negative verdict by the jurors”.

Lawyers Roberto Montalto and Marion Camilleri signed the appeal.Ms Bickle’s case had come to light in the wake of an inquiry called following allegations that the former prison director at the time, Sandro Gatt, gave preferential treatment to notorious drug trafficker Leli Camilleri, known as Leli l-Bully.

During the trial, jurors heard four main witnesses on how they bought drugs from Ms Bickle and paid with whatever items they could.

Three of them, Pauline Pisani, Elaine Muscat and Maria Conċetta Borg, spoke of how they had been turned into her slaves, being made to do tasks such as shaving her private parts, doing her hair, washing her in the shower and doing her laundry.

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