A Libyan man, Abdul Salam Salem Ben Ahmed, was today jailed for four years and three months - the minimum at law - after he admitted in court to having trafficked in heroin and having harboured three men after they escaped from prison.
The prisoners were Fakri Esawi, John Woods and Anthony Zammit, who broke out in June 2000.
Ahmed also admitted to having violently resisted arrest on June 14, 2000 at about 1 p.m. His guilty plea was filed shortly before he was to undergo trial.
The three escaped prisoners had fled to Mr Ahmed's flat in Rabat. When the prisoners were re-captured, Mr Ahmed escpaed and was found in a flat belong to David Gatt (not the former police inspector) in Qawra. Mr Ahmed tried to jump out of a window but was arrested.
Dr Franco Debono and Dr Marion Camilleri were defence counsel.
The prosecution had demanded in the bill of indictment that the accused be condemned to life imprisonment.
In December 2003 the First Hall of the Civil Court yesterday upheld a constitutional reference made by the three three prison inmates, ruling that criminal proceedings against them in the Magistrates' Court were in violation of their right to freedom from being tried twice on the same offence.
The constitutional reference was made after Zammit, Woods and Esawi were charged by the police with offences relating to their escape from the Corradino Correctional Facility.
All three submitted they had already undergone proceedings by the prison's internal disciplinary board, had been found guilty and had been punished by forfeiting a number of days of remission of the prison sentences they were serving in connection with other crimes.
The prosecution submitted that the disciplinary proceedings within the facility were internal disciplinary measures that could not be deemed to be criminal proceedings before a court. Thus, the principle of freedom from being tried twice for the same offence, or double jeopardy, did not apply.
Mr Justice Joseph R. Micallef declared that the court was bound by the terms of the reference made to it by the Magistrates' Court. Thus, the accused men's grievances had to be examined in the light of the provisions of both the Constitution and those of the European Convention of Human Rights.
The court pointed out that there was a distinction between the two laws. The Constitution provided that any person who had been tried by a competent court for a criminal offence could not be tried again in other proceedings for the same crime, save by court order. As a result, the Constitution did not affect any law that empowered a court to hear proceedings against a member of a disciplined force for some criminal offence in respect of which that member had already undergone disciplinary proceedings. In such cases though, the court was bound to take into consideration any punishment meted out in the disciplinary proceedings.
As the words "members of a disciplined force" included persons who were subject to discipline, the accused were subject to prison discipline.
Mr Justice Micallef declared that in the light of the provisions of the Constitution, the previous disciplinary proceedings to which the three men had been subjected did not impede the procedures against them in the criminal courts.
However, the same did not apply to the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights. The convention stipulated that no one could be tried or punished in criminal proceedings under the state's jurisdiction for some crime that one had already been tried for according to law. No exceptions to this rule existed in terms of the convention.
The convention, the court noted, did not prohibit a person being subjected to different procedures of different natures. However, when the disciplinary proceedings were of a certain gravity, this had the effect of bringing into application the principle that no one could be tried twice for the same offence.
Mr Justice Micallef declared that the disciplinary proceedings to which the accused had been subjected in prison were carried out by the disciplinary board and the appeals tribunal, both of which had been established by law. The accused had not submitted that the two boards had not acted according to law but, on the contrary, they said the proceedings to which they had been subjected constituted a serious obstacle to criminal proceedings against them.
Some of the charges against the accused in the Magistrates' Court were the same as those for which they had been disciplined in prison and the accused submitted that the decision of the disciplinary board was final.
Mr Justice Micallef concluded that the proceedings against the accused within the Corradino Correctional Facility were of a criminal nature for the purposes of the European Convention of Human Rights.
The court added that in so much as the accused were charged with offences based upon their escape from prison, such charges were contrary to the principle of freedom from double jeopardy. However, where the accused were charged with offences that did not fall within the sphere of the facility's disciplinary proceeding, there was nothing to impede the magistrate presiding over their case from continuing to hear it.
Mr Justice Micallef concluded his judgment by finding that the criminal proceedings against the accused were not in violation of the Constitution but were in violation of their rights as protected by the European convention.
He ordered that the case be remitted to the Magistrates' Court that would ensure that the accused would not be tried twice for the same offences for which they had already been disciplined.