A frail 74-year-old man yesterday took the witness stand to defend himself against charges of fraudulently cashing a cheque for €52,507 which was not issued in his name.

Vincenzo Stivala, owner of Black Gold Saloon and diner in Sliema, told jurors he had cashed the cheque for his friend Charles Meilaq also known as "Il-Milinarju".

Prosecutors said the cheque had been issued by mistake in the name of another man, Charles Dimech, by the Water Services Corporation. The mistake was that Mr Dimech, who had carried out some work for the corporation, had already been paid on May 3, 2000.

The corporation's former CEO Anthony Rizzo said the case had been investigated and it was established that a second cheque had been issued but not why this second payment was made. Nonetheless, some people had been fired over the matter.

It was not explained to the court how the cheque may have ended up in Mr Meilaq's hands and eventually in the hands of Mr Stivala, who is pleading not guilty to money laundering, acting as a financial institution without a licence and relapsing.

Moreover, the contractor who was issued the cheque twice, Mr Dimech, said he did not know the accused and had only received payment once.

Mr Stivala told the court that at the time, in May 2000, he ran a car rental company with 170 vehicles and also owned a bar and restaurant called the Black Gold Saloon.

He said that when his long-time friend gave him the cheque, he was having problems with the Inland Revenue department and they had frozen his accounts.

However, he denied that he was going to get a cut of the money once the cheque was converted into cash. He said the agreement was that he would keep any interest accrued while the money was in his account.

Testifying, Mr Meilaq refused to say where he got the cheque but said that at the time he used to lend money to people. He had problems with his wife and since he was afraid that this would lead to his accounts being frozen, he had given the cheque to the accused.

Replying to questions put to him by the defence counsel, Mr Meilaq confirmed that he never been arraigned in connection with this case.

He said that over a period of six months, he had given the accused between 20 and 30 cheques to deposit or cash, because he trusted him.

Lawyers Emmanuel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi appeared for Mr Stivala.