Former Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech, who was sentenced to a year in jail, yesterday blamed pre-trial publicity and the Police Commissioner for his conviction, arguing that his right to a fair trial had been breached.

The fact that he was arraigned under arrest at night sensationalised the case with the intention to prejudice it through pre-trial publicity, Mr Dimech said in a constitutional application against Police Commissioner John Rizzo and Attorney General Peter Grech.

Mr Dimech was sentenced in December after he was found guilty of bribing the council’s former contracts manager, Stephen Buhagiar, in 2010.

Mr Buhagiar had testified that, before he was given the post as contracts manager, Mr Dimech had quite plainly asked him how much he was ready to “offer”, such as a five or 10 per cent commission, to secure him the job.

Mr Buhagiar said he immediately pointed out that with a salary of €1,200 per month (attached to the contracts manager’s position) he had little to offer.

After that, he never heard the matter being mentioned again.

In his application, Mr Dimech said that, after his initial interrogation on the bribery allegations, which he always denied, he made public declarations about the way he was treated by Police Inspector Angelo Gafà, who eventually prosecuted in his case.

Following those comments, he was arrested a second time and investigated by Mr Gafà.

This, he argued, amounted to a conflict of interest considering that the investigation was about comments the officer made about him.

Mr Dimech said that his human rights were breached when the Police Commissioner had given publicity to his case before he was arraigned. This, he believed, tainted his case and did not allow him to have an impartial and independent hearing,.

He added that it was highly irregular that a police inspector with a conflict of interest would be allowed to prosecute in the case.

Mr Dimech asked the court to declare that his rights had been breached and to remedy the situation.