Jurors in the trial of an Englishman accused of conspiracy to deal with ecstasy in the summer of 2006 are expected to begin their deliberations today.
Steve Marsden, 48, had allegedly been found in possession of over 50,000 pills hidden in his jeep when he arrived from Sicily on July 9, 2006, the night of the World Cup final.
Testifying, he said he had been approached by two men to make a drug run. Naming a certain Kenneth Donaldson and Andrew Woodhouse, he said they agreed to pay him Lm5,000 for the job. (Mr Woodhouse had also been named by Mark Stephens who was found guilty last year of importing drugs in 2003 and was jailed for 25 years and fined €60,000.)
When asked by the prosecution why he had hidden the drugs in the panels of the car, Mr Marsden said he was driving through southern Italy, which was very dangerous, and so wanted to hide the pills to avoid them getting stolen.
He said he had done all the necessary homework and knew that the drugs were not illegal.
Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, presiding over the trial, asked Mr Marsden why he had allowed officers to work for 10 hours to dismantle the car as part of their search once he believed the drugs to be legal.
The accused replied that even though the drugs were legal the police and Customs would have still confiscated them.
When originally arraigned in 2006, Mr Marsden had been charged with importing 28 packets, containing 50,000 ecstasy pills, with the Lacoste crocodile logo embossed on them. He had also been accused of trafficking in the drug.
However, two months into the compilation of evidence, court expert Mario Mifsud, a pharmacist, had testified that the pills were not illegal.
It turned out that the pills contain the chemical mCPP, which shares several pharmacological properties with MDMA (ecstasy) but was not illegal in Malta when the find was allegedly made.
The charges of importing and pushing drugs were subsequently dropped and the Attorney General issued a bill of indictment accusing Mr Marsden of conspiring to deal in ecstasy.
Mr Marsden appealed, arguing that since the drugs were not illegal the "charge as it stands is an invention of the Attorney General in his unfettered right to charge as he deems fit".
The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice David Scicluna and Mr Justice Joseph Micallef, threw out the appeal and ruled that "a person may be found guilty of, say, conspiracy to import heroin into Malta even though the stuff he eventually brings into Malta turns out to be baking powder. It all depends on what was actually agreed upon between the conspirators and, more specifically, on the object of the conspiracy".
The appeals court said that it was not up to it to decide whether "it was "real" ecstasy or "fake" ecstasy, adding that the Attorney General is clearly of the opinion that it was "real" and Mr Marsden disagrees. However, at this point it was up to a jury to decide.
Mr Marsden's case attracted the attention of Fair Trials International which, in June last year charged that the prosecuting authorities were refusing to acknowledge that he had committed no offence by importing the then legal drugs.
The BBC also reported on the case in its website last September last year, reporting that he had been held in preventative custody for two years after bail was denied because of fears he might abscond despite having a friend and a business in Malta.
The head of the Prosecution Unit, Anthony Barbara, assisted by Nadine Sant and Jason Grima, prosecuted.
Lawyer Joe Brincat appeared for Mr Marsden.