Relief flooded over Mark Agius’s face as the Appeals Court yesterday cleared him of illegally storing fireworks in the Naxxar Peace Band Club, finally ending six years of anxiety and sleepless nights.
Still looking dazed as he attempted to digest the good news, the 47-year-old trumpeter said the judgment unshackled him from the painful journey of living with a two-year prison sentence hanging over his head.
“It’s been a long wait and our lives had come to a standstill. We were always preparing for the unknown, our freedom robbed. Now I feel as if I’m soaring high,” Mr Agius told the Times of Malta.
The case dates back to 2008, when the police received a tip-off that fireworks were being stored illegally in the band club’s basement, less than a month after a blast in Ħal-Dejf Street, Naxxar, had demolished three houses and killed two people – Paul Camilleri, 47, the man suspected of illegally manufacturing fireworks in his garage, and his neighbour, Sina Sammut, a 35-year-old mother of two.
Mr Agius, who had never taken an interest in fireworks but was passionate about the band and the feast’s decorations, was one of four who held a key to the club’s basement, where boxes of explosives and gunpowder were being secretly stored.
After the raid, the band club committee, 10 men and a woman, were charged, but, as one of the key holders, Mr Agius was charged separately.
This morning I nearly wore black for court – I wasn’t optimistic it would go our way
Contrary to many other members, Mr Agius had never held a licence to manufacture fireworks, nor had he ever accompanied anybody to the fields where petards were let off during the feast.
“Fireworks were never important to me. Playing the trumpet and putting up decorations in the club were my passion. I used to take my son with me sometimes, and there is no way I’d ever expose him to danger and be so irresponsible if I knew explosives were being stored,” he said.
Mr Agius has always contended that he had never seen or suspected anything because all the boxes were hidden in a small room whose entrance was concealed behind a tall white cupboard. This was backed by a police inspector’s testimony that “the fireworks were so well hidden there was no way you could see them”.
But then Magistrate Silvio Meli (since promoted to judge) ruled it was impossible for the man not to have seen these boxes and sentenced him to two years in prison, to send a “clear message” that the safety of others could not be “callously ignored”.
In their appeal, Mr Agius’s lawyers, Joe Giglio and Stephen Tonna Lowell, said the ruling was “inexplicable” and “absurd”, since the court had based its decision on photos taken after the boxes had been brought out of their secret hiding place.
Handing down judgment, Mr Justice David Scicluna believed Mr Agius’s version and ruled there was no evidence linking him to the explosives and that he was one of “at least three others” who had held the key.
The court also noted that there had been no investigations into who could have also been in possession of a key in the past. Mr Agius was cleared of all the charges.
Mr Agius said that were it not for the support of his employers at Mater Dei Hospital’s POYC and the friends and family who had stood by him, he would have drowned in the quicksand of despair.
His long-suffering wife, Charmaine, said the ruling had restored the family’s belief in the local justice system.
The couple, who have a 13-year-old son, had delayed moving house and lived frugally, never knowing how many more court fees they would have to pay or whether a prison sentence lay ahead.
“This morning, I nearly wore black for court – I wasn’t optimistic it would go our way – but somehow I settled on a pink jacket. I was so anxious throughout, and when the judge read out the sentence I wanted to jump up and hug him. I’m happy the truth has prevailed,” she said, crying tears of joy.