A man who was sentenced to 22 years in jail on drug charges had the term reduced to 13 years after an appeals court ruled there was no evidence to prove he conspired to traffic in drugs.

Rida Salem Suleiman Shoaib together with his cousin El Gamoudi Nabel Mohammed and friend Elkekli Saber had been charged with conspiring to traffic in five kilogrammes of cannabis. They had also been charged with possessing the drug in circumstances denoting it was not for their exclusive use while Mr Shoaib had also been charged with possessing cocaine.

In a trial by jury, Mr Saber was acquitted by a unanimous vote and Mr Gamoudi had not been found guilty by seven votes to two. However, Mr Shoiab was found guilty by eight votes to one on all counts.

Defence lawyers Gianella Caruana Curran and Emanuel Mallia filed an appeal saying their client could not have been found guilty of conspiracy because there was no evidence to support the charge.

The Criminal Court of Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Filletti and Mr Justice David Scicluna, said in its judgment that Mr Shoiab was right to contest this point. The judges said the jurors were misguided by the arguments put forward by the prosecution, stressing that there was no evidence in the trial to support the charge.

The prosecution had said that if jurors were to find him guilty of the second charge, that is possession of the drug in circumstances denoting it was not for his exclusive use, then they would also have to find him guilty of the first charge.

The court said that Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, who presided over the trial, had made it crystal clear to the jurors that each charge should stand alone but, instead, the jurors took notice of what the prosecution had said.

The appeals court however noted there was enough circumstantial evidence for the jurors to find Mr Shoaib guilty of possessing the five kilogrammes of drugs in circumstances denoting it was not for his exclusive use. The drugs were found in a shoe-box on the veranda of the adjacent apartment where Mr Shoaib used to live. When Mr Shoiab was asked about the empty apartment he tried to avoid the questions.

Taking into consideration his clean police record, the court cut the jail term by nine years and halved the €46,600 fine.