The trial of former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo in connection with bribery charges will be delayed further after a key witness appealed a three-year jail term over his involvement in the case.

The trial had been pending because businessman Anthony Grech Sant was being prosecuted separately in connection with the case.

The trial was originally scheduled to start on April 18, last year but was put off indefinitely because both the defence and the prosecution planned to summon Mr Grech Sant to testify.

On October 17, Mr Grech Sant was jailed for three years after being found guilty of being an accomplice in the bribery of the former Chief Justice and former judge Patrick Vella, along with Mario Camilleri, known as L-Imnieħru, and his son Pierre, who were respectively sentenced to four and three years in prison for similar charges.

However, both the Camilleris and Mr Grech Sant, a personal friend of the former Chief Justice, have now appealed the conviction. This means that Dr Arrigo's trial will have to wait yet again.

The proceedings, when held, would bring to an end the criminal action over the bribery allegations involving the former Chief Justice and the former judge, who has already served a two-year jail term.

The case had sent shock waves after the security service flagged up the matter during investigations they were carrying out into drug trafficking in 2002.

Case details

The case against Noel Arrigo started in August 2002 when he and Patrick Vella were charged with accepting bribes for reducing, from 16 to 12 years, a jail term handed down to Mario Camilleri for drug trafficking.

Since then, the two have been through a series of legal proceedings in various courts.

They had filed a case in the First Hall of the Civil Court arguing that then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami had breached their fundamental right to a fair trial when he commented on the case during a press conference he had given in August 2002 breaking the news.

In December of that year, the court dismissed the case, ruling that the Prime Minister's declarations could not be considered as statements of guilt.

But the accused appealed to the Constitutional Court, which, in 2003, ruled that their right to presumption of innocence had been breached in that press conference but concluded that, as the judges' fundamental human right to trial by an independent and impartial court had not been violated, there was no reason to halt the criminal proceedings against them.

The former judges took their case to the European Court of Human Rights but their case was rejected in May 2005.

On March 13, 2007, Dr Vella, then 63, was jailed for two years after he admitted to the charges in a trial presided over by Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo. Dr Vella confessed to reducing Mr Camilleri's jail term in exchange for €23,293.

He filed an appeal, claiming that the punishment was "excessive and disproportionate" to the circumstances of the case but later withdrew it.

He left prison last July 11 after serving 16 months for accepting the bribe.

Mr Grech Sant had originally been charged together with Mario Camilleri, Pierre Camilleri and Joseph Zammit, known as Is-Sej. In April 2006, Mr Zammit was jailed for two years when he admitted to his involvement in the case.

Just like the ex-judges, the Camilleris filed a constitutional application claiming a breach of their right to a fair trial during the August 2002 press conference.

But in August this year, a judge turned down the claim, paving the way for Magistrate Audrey Demicoli's judgement earlier this month.