A court ruled this afternoon that there was sufficient evidence for former Judge Ray Pace to be placed under a Bill of Indictment.
The ruling was given by Magistrate Neville Camilleri during the compilation of evidence against Dr Pace, who stands accused of bribery and trading in influence. He resigned last month and is out on bail.
During this morning's proceedings, Magistrate Camilleri upheld a request by Dr Pace to be able to withdraw some money from his bank account so that he and his family can get by.
The court had previously frozen Dr Pace's financial assets. One of his lawyers, Stefano Filletti, said it was humiliating for Dr Pace to depend on his relatives to be able to lead a decent life.
Magistrate Camilleri allowed him to withdraw €1,164 per month.
Earlier in the sitting today, the defence counsel said the police had not presented any evidence to prove their case against Dr Pace.
No evidence had been presented to establish whether Dr Pace had received anything for something which he was duty bound to do, or to do something which he was not supposed to do.
Defence counsel Joe Mifsud said that an examination of the evidence showed that there were no grounds for a bill of indictment.
Police superintendent Norbert Ciappara said there were recordings of phone interceptions between Dr Pace and Sandro Psaila (one of the men accused of attempting to bribe the judge) and conversations about a CCTV camera system and car repairs, as well as mention of a court judgement on which Dr Pace was supposed to make pressure.
As an example, he said that on September 27 there was a conversation during which Dr Pace told Psaila "I have done what I was required to do". In another call, the figure '18' was mentioned - a reference to the 18-year-jail term handed down to drug trafficker Darren Desira.
BUTCHER GAVE PHONE TO JUDGE
Evidence was also given by butcher Jesmond Micallef who described how Dr Pace and his family were his clients. One day he told the judge that his daughter was due to start the law course. The judge offered to help her, if required. The judge then asked him for a mobile phone, on which, he said, the daughter could call him.
He therefore bought a phone from GO mobile and gave it to him. Most of the time this mobile was kept by Dr Pace's wife and she used it to call him for any meat orders.
The court was today was also handed a document with transcripts of 79 phone calls intercepted by the Security Service between August and September last year.
Those heard include Darren Desira, Dr Pace, someone known as il-bobo, Sandro Psaila, Raymond Caruana (also accused of trying to bribe Dr Pace), a certain Pierre Cremona and woman who were not named.