Jurors in the trial by jury of a former policeman charged with drug trafficking are expected to retire to deliberate tomorrow morning after the closing arguments where the prosecution and defence counsels presented opposing arguments.

Lawyer from the Attorney Generals Office, Nadine Sant, today countered the testimony of Jean Pierre Abdilla, 31, who stands accused of conspiring to deal in heroin, trafficking in the drug and breaching administrative law enforcement regulations on and before March 2005.

She said that he was not credible enough to rely on, especially since he was so inconsistent during his testimony. Highlighting one particular example when a number of dead birds were found in a chest freezer at his home, she said that he changed his version about his three times.

First he said that the birds belonged to his brother, and then he claimed that he didn't know the freezer was on, and then he changed his tune and said that they belonged to his brother, she said.

She added that the defence counsel have claimed that Mr Abdilla was not guilty of trying to get his Moroccan friends into Malta illegally but he admitted on the witness stand to trying to bribe an immigration officer to get them here, she said.

Even when the accused had received an anonymous tip-off that the police were on to him, he still went ahead and tried to strike a deal to sell on up to a kilogramme of cocaine, she added.

Defence lawyer Anġlu Farrugia, rebutted her arguments and said that no drugs were ever found at the home of the accused or in the two garages he used to own. Neither were drugs found on his person.

This was a particularly important point as his client was charged with trafficking when there was no proof that the drug actually existed, Dr Farrugia said.

Investigating officer Assistant Commissioner Neil Harrison had admitted that using an informant to help in the investigations against Mr Abdilla was risky and this was what had happened because the accused was framed by this informer, Dr Farrugia said.

He questioned how the police had only given a limited amount of video tape to record on to an officer who was on surveillance and had to capture the accused allegedly giving a small of packet of heroin to the informer.

At one point the tape stopped and skipped a few minutes forward. Why did this happen and what had happened during those few minutes, the lawyer asked.

He said there were serious doubts about the testimony of the informer and according to law those doubts had to go in favour of the accused. Mr Abdilla did not have anythong to do with drugs and this was backed up by his police statement, where he said that he did not have anything to do with drugs, Dr Farrugia said.

In concluding he insisted that his client was framed by the police informer.