A former chief projects officer at Enemalta who was implicated in the oil procurement scandal by presidential pardon recipient George Farrugia was yesterday cleared of all charges after a magistrate ruled that his version was the more credible one.

Ray Ferris, a 53-year-old Sliema resident, beamed and hugged his lawyers and relatives in the courtroom at the end of a two-year ordeal, in which he had always stressed his innocence.

Court action against Mr Ferris started when Mr Farrugia, an oil trader, told police he had given him silverware in exchange for a helping hand to win oil tenders.

I always kept him at an arm’s length. I never acted on what he said. I don’t do these things

Mr Ferris was charged with corruption, fraud and trading in influence in November 2008 and over the previous months. The prosecution alleged he accepted the gifts and demanded tens of thousands of euros to influence a tender adjudicating board.

But Mr Ferris insisted he had made no such demands and that it was Mr Farrugia who told him to take the items and give them to members of the adjudicating board to make sure he won a massive tender.

He said Mr Farrugia had approached him and given him gifts at Christmas, but he had always refused to discuss tenders. Mr Farrugia offered Mr Ferris a job if all went well and gave him three wrapped gifts – a crystal bowl and two crystal bonbonnieres.

But, while he accepted the gifts, he did not act on Mr Farrugia’s request. “I always kept him at an arm’s length. I never acted on what he said. I don’t do these things,” he told the court in his testimony.

In the judgment, over 100 pages long, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera ruled that Mr Ferris was more credible than Mr Farrugia when measured against the facts of the case and other testimony. The Christmas present did not constitute the “meeting of wills” required for a corruption offence.

The charge of trading in influence had six elements, but not one of them had been proven, the magistrate ruled, even surmising that the Attorney General may have included the charge “as an oversight”.

As for the fraud charge, Mr Ferris had not been placed in an advantageous position by simply accepting a Christmas gift from Mr Farrugia. This action alone did not satisfy the parameters of the offence.

Moreover, Mr Farrugia could not be described as a “victim”, as he had given the gifts to Mr Ferris of his own free will.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera ruled that the prosecution had not managed to prove its case. She therefore cleared Mr Ferris of all the charges.

Mr Farrugia, the person at the heart of the oil procurement scandal, told police Mr Ferris asked for €40,000 in return for helping his company win the Petroleum Division’s privatisation tender.

Mr Farrugia, the local agent of oil giants Total and Trafigura, had submitted a bid with a Greek company for the purchase of the petroleum division after the government announced its privatisation plans.

His immunity from prosecution may be revoked if he is found to have lied to the police and attention will now turn to him following Mr Ferris’s acquittal.

Under the conditions of the pardon granted to him during the last months of the previous administration in February 2013, Mr Farrugia was obliged to tell the police all he knew about bribes for oil procurement tenders and gifts related to the petroleum division privatisation.

Superintendent Paul Vassallo and Mr Gafa’ prosecuted. Lawyers Kenneth Grima and Veronique Dalli appeared for Mr Ferris.