A 61-year-old man who admitted to having taken drugs since 1979 was jailed for six months and fined €600 after he was found guilty of trafficking heroin in 2005.

Oscar Cassar, from Zabbar, was red-handed as he injected himself with heroin in his garage in Convent Street. The police had gone there after receiving an anonymous tip-off.

They found a syringe full of a brown liquid, suspected to be heroin, used syringes, seven sealed syringes, two packets of citric acid, a teaspoon, pieces of foil, a lighter and an electricity wire probably used as a tourniquet.

The court heard how Mr Cassar admitted to the police that he was a drug addict and had consumed drugs since 1979. He told them that the previous day, he met another man, Noel Fenech, and they had bought heroin and consumed it together.

That day, he met him again in a bar and had gone to purchase heroin for the two of them.

The police caught Mr Cassar in the act while Mr Fenech had gone to his house for something.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras ruled that this was not a crime of trafficking by sharing because he had gone to buy the heroin for the two of them.

She said that his police record contained six convictions for heroin possession and one for possession of cannabis resin. He had been placed on probation on three occasions and conditionally discharged on the other three.

As she considered that the drugs found were "minimal" and that he had found himself in this situation because of his drug addiction, she jailed him for six months.
Police Inspector Pierre Grech prosecuted.