A man convicted for defrauding the Casino di Venezia in 2006 has had his jail term reduced by a year after a court upheld his submissions that his crimes had a common design and should be taken as a continuous one and that he was an accomplice to money laundering and not the instigator.

Fabio Zulian, 49, had been sentencef to seven years imprisonment but this was reduced to six years on appeal. Moreover, Mr Justice David Scicluna, presiding over the Appeals Court, granted permission for Mr Zulian to serve his prison sentence in Torino, Italy.

Mr Zulian had originally been charged with two other men – Gaetano Caramazza, 65, and Slovenian Nevio Barut, 50 – in 2006, of defrauding the Casino di Venezia out of some €172,000.

Mr Caramazza had committed suicide and Mr Barut filed a guilty plea and was jailed for three years and fined €7,000 in 2007.

Earlier this year, Mr Zulian was jailed for seven years and fined €20,000.

In 2013, Mr Zulian had to be brought back to Malta on the strength of a European Arrest Warrant after he was granted permission to go to Italy but failed to return for the continuation of his case.