A wanted man who was extradited to Malta from the UK two days ago to face charges of fraud had told a British judge that his life would be in danger if he was sent back to the island because a criminal gang was after him.
The gang referred to by David Coleiro, 46, from Marsascala, included the notorious Anthony Borg also known as il-Bona, who was murdered in February last year, the court heard.
Mr Coleiro owed money to the gang and if he did not pay up he would be killed, he told District Judge John Zani during his extradition proceedings at Westminster Magistrates Court in London.
Mr Coleiro was arraigned in 2006 together with another man, Raymond Debono, 54, also from Marsascala and charged with defrauding a number of companies of some €116,000. He was subsequently granted bail and later given permission to travel to the UK but never returned. He spent the last 15 months on remand in a UK prison pending the extradition proceedings.
During yesterday’s sitting in Malta, the original fraud case resumed with defence lawyers Giannella Caruana Curran and Joseph Giglio explaining why their client had absconded: not only had he been threatened but his family too.
Someone had even managed to contact him in prison in London to threaten him, they said.
Magistrate Audrey Demicoli remanded him in custody.
When he was contesting his extradition before the London court, Mr Coleiro had claimed he struggled to repay the debt he had racked up with the gang and was suffering emotionally and financially.
His family had been threatened and the gang had told him they would kill him if he returned to Malta and failed to pay the money back.
Not only did the gang make the threats but they also had contacts who worked as prison guards and there were gang members in prison too, he claimed.
A British former bank manager, Richard Murkin, testified that he had employed Mr Coleiro to carry out retiling in his mother’s home. When on the site he had overheard a telephone conversation in which Mr Coleiro was threatened.
During that sitting, Mr Coleiro presented four affidavits to the court from four family members who had either been threatened or were privy to the threats. The British judge was also given newspaper cuttings which appeared to show that Mr Borg was a “ruthless moneylender, seriously involved in criminal activity with others”.