The right of access to a lawyer during police investigations has been raised again during the preliminary pleas of a man facing a drug trial over trafficking just under a kilo of heroin.

Martin Dimech, 50, of Żejtun, was allegedly found hiding the drug at his farm in March 2009, when the police carried out a raid and found it stashed away behind fridges inside a garage.

The drugs were allegedly kept by the accused in return for €11,600 given to him by another person. The drugs were worth more than €45,500 and had a purity of 35 per cent.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Jose Herrera filed a plea in which they made reference to landmark decisions declaring that it was a violation of a suspect’s human rights not to have access to a lawyer.

Last month, a man currently serving a nine-year jail term on drug-related charges filed a constitutional application asking for his sentence to be revoked for the same reason.

To date, two jury trials have been postponed because lawyers have made constitutional references related to this issue.