Former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo is set to discover his fate this week, seven years after he was forced to resign over his involvement in the biggest judicial scandal in Maltese legal history.
Former chief justice Noel Arrigo faces four to six years imprisonment if found guilty this week of accepting bribes to reduce a drug trafficker's sentence.
At the end of a trial that began on November 11, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo last Thursday retired to consider the evidence and is expected to return a verdict by the end of the week.
The case will be judged under the criteria set out by law at the time the alleged crime was committed in July 2002, when the main charge of bribery carried a maximum jail term of just three years.
Dr Arrigo is charged with accepting a bribe of €11,650 when he reduced the sentence of drug trafficker Mario Camilleri from 16 to 12 years.
All those involved in the corruption case, including former judge Patrick Vella, were jailed.
Dr Vella, who admitted to accepting €23,000 in exchange for reducing Mr Camilleri's jail term, was sentenced to two years in March 2007.
Since news of the scandal was broken by former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami during a news conference in August 2002, both the penalty for bribery and that for trading in influence, which Dr Arrigo is also accused of, have been raised. The most significant change was made to the bribery charge, where the maximum was raised to eight years.
The maximum for trading in influence was raised from one year to 18 months. However, the change also entails that someone charged under this article could have his assets frozen or even confiscated.
The third charge of revealing official secrets remained the same and is subject to a jail term not exceeding one year or a fine.
The last charge is the only one not being contested by Dr Arrigo. He did not plead guilty to this, but it is not being challenged like the other charges even though his lawyers said they had reservations over whether an appeals judgment qualifies as an official secret.
The toughest fight is being put up against the bribery charge, which Dr Arrigo is defending by arguing that his actions were not influenced by the 'gift' he received since the money was given to him after the sentence was communicated.
This argument was advanced by the defence lawyer Joe Giglio in his final submissions on Thursday, who submitted that under Maltese law a person cannot be bribed after performing a favour for another individual. Instead, the offending act must have taken place before the event.
Dr Arrigo has admitted he accepted €11,650 in connection with the reduction of the jail sentence, but has been adamant all along that the judgment was written before the money was given to him and that this did not influence him in any way.
"If I had to re-write that judgment a hundred times, I would do it the same way," he said when testifying last week.
However, the prosecution is questioning the credibility of the former judge, who admitted during the trial that he had lied to police to derail their investigations.
Chief prosecutor Anthony Barbara focused on the conversations Dr Arrigo had with the middlemen in this case - his childhood friend, Anthony Grech Sant, and Joseph Zammit, known as Is-Sei - about the possibility of the sentence being reduced.
"There is only one truth and his actions indicated what his intentions were," Dr Barbara submitted. "This is a person who never imagined he would be caught."
But this is just a slither of the evidence and arguments Mr Justice Caruana Demajo will have to sift through before he delivers judgment.
The unmaking of two judges
July 5, 2002: The 16-year jail term of Mario Camilleri, known as L-Imnieħru, is reduced to 12 years on appeal by Chief Justice Noel Arrigo, Mr Justice Patrick Vella and Mr Justice Joseph Filletti.
August 1, 2002: Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami reveals during a news conference that Dr Arrigo and Dr Vella are being investigated in connection with bribery offences for reducing the jail term. The police had been tapping phone conversations and the Prime Minister says that money changed hands. Mr Justice Filletti is not implicated.
August 3, 2002: The government initiates impeachment proceedings in unprecedented circumstances.
August 4, 2002: Both judges are in court in a four-hour arraignment characterised by hot-tempered legal wrangling over procedural issues.
August 8, 2002: Dr Arrigo resigns.
August 12, 2002: Dr Vella resigns.
August 19, 2002: Four men are arraigned over bribing the judges - Mario Camilleri, his son Pierre, and middlemen Anthony John Grech Sant and Joseph Zammit, known as Is-Sej.
August 22, 2002: The judges file a case in the First Hall of the Civil Courts arguing that the comments passed by the Prime Minster during the press conference about their case violated their fundamental human right to a fair trial.
August 26, 2002: Vincent DeGaetano is sworn in as new Chief Justice.
December 2002: The Civil Court rules that Dr Fenech Adami's comments during the August 1 press conference cannot be considered as statements of guilt and therefore the judges' human rights have not been breached. It directs the Court of Criminal Inquiry to continue with proceedings.
January 2004: The former judges take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. They contend their right to be tried by an impartial and independent tribunal had been breached, their presumption of innocence had not been respected and their case was not redressed in an effective manner. The ECHR unanimously declares their application inadmissible.
February, 2006: Joseph Zammit, Is-Sej, is jailed for two years over complicity in bribery, after he admits to handing over €11,650 to each of the judges.
March 13, 2007: Dr Vella admits accepting a bribe to reduce Mr Camilleri's jail term by four years. He is jailed for two years in a section for vulnerable people.
July 11, 2008: Dr Vella walks out of prison after serving 16 months.
October 16, 2008: Mario Camilleri receives a four-year term for his part in the case, and his son Pierre and Mr Grech Sant get three years each. They appeal.
July 30, 2009: Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano confirms the jail terms of Mr Camilleri and his son while reducing Mr Grech Sant's term from three years to 20 months for his limited role in the case.
November 11, 2009: Dr Arrigo's trial begins.
Timeline compiled by Waylon Johnston.