A magistrate heard yesterday that an inmate’s mother confessed to passing a package containing drugs to a prisoner inside a courtroom last month.
Woman Police Constable Louise Cuschieri said Rita Zammit made the admission during a body search in a bathroom at the law court soon after she was seen conveying something to Jason Decelis, who was waiting for his case to be heard before Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras on January 14.
The officer was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Mr Decelis who stands charged with dealing in drugs in court.
He is also pleading not guilty to possession of cocaine and heroin with the intent to sell the substance at Corradino Correctional Facility.
Mr Decelis, 37, is serving time over the death of 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler who overdosed in 2001 and was then dumped in a field in Mġarr.
Ms Zammit, 57, from St Paul’s Bay, pleads not guilty to trafficking drugs by giving them to Mr Decelis.
Police Inspector Nikolai Sant told Magistrate Ian Farrugia that soon after police officers saw the woman pass something to Mr Decelis a search was carried out in the magistrate’s chamber and a capsule containing five grams of heroin, 10 grams of cocaine and 99 steroids were found. He said Police Inspector Fabian Fleri and Police Sergeant Andrew St John had seen Ms Zammit placing the package in Mr Decelis’s jacket pocket.
Mr St John said he was sitting in the courtroom waiting to testify in another drugs case when Mr Decelis walked in and sat at the back of the hall. Seconds later, Ms Zammit walked in and sat next to the inmate.
He heard her asking him who he was and then saw her getting something out of her handbag and placing it inside Mr Decelis’s jacket pocket.
Police Constable Kevin Curmi testified that he had seen Ms Zammit acting suspiciously when sitting next to Mr Decelis and another inmate, Stephen Nappa. He said he heard Ms Zammit asking Mr Nappa what his name was. Ms Cuschieri said that Ms Zammit, whose son, Jonathan, was in prison, did not tell her whether there had been an agreement with Mr Decelis over the drug delivery.
The case continues.
Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta appeared for Mr Decelis who, together with his parents, Carmel and Conċetta, had been jailed in June 2006 after they were found guilty in a trial by jury of murder by omission by failing to take Ms Bowdler to hospital when she suffered an overdose.
Ms Bowdler’s lifeless body was found by a farmer in a field in an area known as Ras il-Ġebel, limits of Mġarr, on May 13, 2001.
Ms Decelis was jailed for 15 years, her son Jason for 25 and Mr Decelis was imprisoned for one-and-a-half years as he was cleared of murder but found guilty of involuntary homicide.