A tragedy at sea led to the arrest of a man who is being tried for involvement in human smuggling, jurors heard yesterday.

Some of the migrants who survived the ill-fated voyage had tried to leave the island before

Some of the migrants who survived the ill-fated voyage in March 2006 spoke of howthey had tried to leave the island once before in December 2005 but had to turn back because of bad weather, witnesses recounted yesterday.

On their first attempt, they bought a small speed boat from taxi drivers Dennis Mckay, 40, from Valletta and Gordon Dimech, 36, from Ħamrun but neither had anything to do with their second attempt, the survivors said.

Mr Mckay died about six months ago and Mr Dimech is being accused of aiding and abetting the escape of migrants.

The star witness in the trial, Jaser Salem el Dagham, said that he had been told by another migrant who had organised the trip to be at Marsamxett Harbour in Valletta.

He paid €840 to a man called Hafes, one of the escaping migrants whom the witness described as the mastermind behind the trip, and then boarded the small boat that had been provided by Mr Mckay.

The witness said he could remember Mr Dimech there too because of his particular haircut as he wore a small ponytail at the time.

Mr el Dagham said that just 15 minutes after leaving the quayside they had to turn back because they feared they would drown as the boat was too small to handle the rough sea.

They left the boat with jerry cans full of extra fuel on board and departed from the scene as quickly as possible because they knew what they were doing was illegal.

The group repeatedly phoned Hafes who had been on the boat with them, asking for their money back but he told them that it was their problem because they had decided to turn back, the witness said.

He was told Mr Dimech would pick up the group and take them to the harbour

When asked whether he could identify Mr Dimech in the courtroom, Mr el Dagham said he could not.

Lawyers Lara Lanfranco and Charlene Camilleri Zarb, from the Attorney General’s Office, read out the police statement released by Hafes because he was not in the country to testify.

In the statement, he gave an almost identical version to that of Mr el Dagham and said that he had arrived in Malta by boat on August 3, 2005, from Tripoli.

He was kept by the police in detention for 45 days and then released. He met Mr Mckay and, together with a group of migrants, told him that they wanted to a buy a boat he had for sale.

Hafes said that he was told that Mr Dimech was the person who would pick up the group on the night and take them to the harbour where they would escape on the boat. Mr Dimech was also the person to provide extra fuel and oil for the boat.

Earlier in the trial, Dr Lanfranco told jurors to forget how they felt about migrants and to focus on the evidence at hand.

“You cannot approach this thinking that those who help them leave the island deserve Gieħ ir-Repubblika because you think there are too many migrants in Malta”, she said, adding that aiding them to escape was a crime.