In 2004, Trevor Bonnici, who was then 29 and earning good money as an oil rig worker, was arrested over suspicions of drug trafficking. But 12 years later, while still not even half way through his 18-month prison sentence, a judge ordered his case to start being heard all over again.

Trevor Bonnici had been serving a one-and-a-half year prison term after failing to overturn a drug trafficking conviction. But last Thursday a judge ordered his release, annulled his conviction and ordered his case to be heard afresh.

The ruling handed down by the Civil Court, in its constitutional jurisdiction, hinged on the fact that the evidence against the accused was mainly based on his admission (which he did not sign) during an interrogation in which he was without legal assistance.

This amounted to a breach of Mr Bonnici’s fundamental rights, the judge ruled. The case will now have to be heard again but the prosecution may no longer rest its case on his admission to the police, which he has retracted.

“Though it was a huge sigh of relief for me, the bottom line is that I am back to square one,” Mr Bonnici told this newspaper.

“I never had a criminal record. In 2004, I was earning as much as €5,000 a month working on an oil rig installation, but this case cost me my job.

“Now I find myself working for a cleaning company earning €700. I hope nobody else will have to endure such an experience,” he said.

The case goes back to July 2004, when the police arrested him on suspicion of drug trafficking.  It is the only time, he says, that he has ever had a brush with the law.

I spent almost seven months behind bars during which I was only existing and nothing more

“I was with my friends playing billiards when my mother called me saying that the police wanted to speak to me. They kept insisting I was involved in drug trafficking and kept asking me about a ‘soap bar’, of which I knew nothing,” Mr Bonnici claims.

“I only made the admission as I could take it no longer. I had been left without food and drink and wanted to cut it short to go back home. Moreover, I was refused the chance to have my lawyer present,” he added.

This right was only introduced into Maltese law six years after Mr Bonnici’s interrogation in 2010.  However, a series of European Court of Human Rights judgments have held that the practice of denying legal assistance at that stage nevertheless constituted a breach of fundamental human rights.

After his arrest, Mr Bonnici’s case dragged on and he was charged in court in 2007. Two years later, in October 2009, he testified that his admission was only motivated by his desire to go back home, following a gruelling 20 hours with no food or drink.

However, the court gave little weight to his testimony, questioning the reason why he allowed five years to elapse before coming forward to retract his admission. Moreover, it remarked how the police version of events contradicted that of Mr Bonnici.

In February 2015 the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 18 months in prison and slapped him with a €1,500 fine. The sentence was confirmed on appeal in December last year, meaning that Mr Bonnici had to start serving his prison term.

“I spent almost seven months behind bars during which I was only existing and nothing more,” he says.

However, in January this year, a landmark judgment by the European Court of Human Rights gave him new hope. The Strasbourg-based court ruled that the rights of an accused would be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police interrogation and without access to a lawyer were used for conviction.

Buoyed by this development, Mr Bonnici’s legal team, composed of lawyers Jason Azzopardi, Kris Busietta, Eve Borg Costanzi and Julian Farrugia, filed an application for his release before the Constitutional Court, also seeking compensation.

The decision was delivered last Thursday when Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti agreed to his request and awarded him €3,000 in damages.

Yet, the story is far from over. While he now stands a good chance of being acquitted once and for all as his self-incriminating statement will no longer be admissible as evidence against him, his life has been turned upside down… for a second time.