Marco Martinz, an Austrian, was today cleared by a court of having assaulted a fellow Austrian in Malta and maliciously administered a poisonous substance to him.

The case was instituted after Kostantinos Anastasiou, an Austrian resident in Wardija, claimed he was injected with poison in the neck by two men and told that he had only 100 hours to live unless he paid them €30,000 for the antidote. The incident allegedly took place in a car on the coast road on August 23, 2003.

Superintendent Carmelo Bartolo told the court that Mr Anastasiou was the victim of a theft while in Austria. He had contracted a certain Bernd Derrant to recover the items but the Austrian police recovered the items before Mr Derrant had completed his task.

Mr Anastasiou said that he felt he did not owe anything to Mr Derrant, but the latter claimed that he still owed him money and came to Malta with Mr Martinz.

The two men were subsequently arrested at the airport trying to leave the island. The police found a pouch containing a number of syringes of different sizes in their luggage. Mr Derrant said that it was steroids that he used because he was a bodybuilder.

The court presided over by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera said it was very strange that although Mr Anastasiou was told that he had only 100 hours to live if he did not take an antidote, he had not sought medical assistance but instead went home to sleep and informed no one until the following day.

The court said that the accused was consistent in his testimony and version of events and repeatedly denied the allegations made against him even in an early stage of the investigations.

The court felt that the accused was more credible than the victim and considered the victim to have ulterior motives to have created this story in particular to avoid having to pay his debts and putting a shadow on the credibility of Mr Derrant.

It therefore cleared Mr Martinz from all charges brought against him.

The case against Mr Derrant is still pending.