A drug operation organised by the police, in which a five kilo package of cannabis was delivered to catch its recipients, did not amount to entrapment so it did not violate human rights, a court has ruled.

Madam Justice Jacqueline Padovani Grima turned down a legal challenge made by two men awaiting trial on charges of cannabis trafficking and conspiring to deal in drugs, which they deny.

Henry Grogan, 31, and Luke Muscat, 26, claimed the police acted as agent provocateurs, which meant they had been entrapped in violation of their human rights.

Undercover agents from the Drug Squad, who organised the delivery, had instigated the commission of the offence, they argued, requesting the evidence about the delivery to be withdrawn from the acts of the proceedings in their case.

But Madam Justice Padovani Grima, presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, said there was no evidence that the two men had been instigated to commit the crime.

There was no evidence that the two men had been instigated to commit the crime

The evidence produced in court so far had revealed that they had been planning the drug deal since November 2009. It was only in January 2010 that the police received information about the men’s alleged link to drug trafficking.

It was also the prosecution’s main witness, Anthony Calleja, who had approached the police with information about the deal.

The police then began the controlled delivery through Mr Calleja on February 9, 2010, when a sample was delivered. The next day, Mr Grogan received a phone call from Mr Calleja and went to collect the entire consignment of 19 blocks of cannabis.

Madam Justice Padovani Grima ruled that it was not the undercover agents who provoked the crime, therefore, but Mr Calleja. The police only became involved after the drug deal had been planned and were not decisive for the crime to have taken place.

The controlled delivery of the cannabis consignment did not amount to entrapment and was therefore not in breach of human rights, the judge decided.