A man who had been jailed for six years over a cannabis deal was acquitted after a court ruled the jurors’ guilty verdict was based on a suspicion that did not prove his guilt by law.

Clayton Galea, 27, of Ħamrun, had been found guilty in 2008 of conspiring to deal in cannabis. He was jailed for six years and fined €15,000. However, the jury’s verdict did not make sense, defence counsel Gianella Caruana Curran argued in an appeal.

The lawyer held that the bill of indictment drawn up by the Attorney General alleged facts that were incorrect and which did not feature in the proceedings.

Jurors had been told that two police officers on their way to investigate a case involving a stolen van stopped to talk to two suspicious-looking men, Mr Galea and Nazzaren Muscat. They spotted Mr Muscat throw a plastic bag into a field and it later transpired that the bag contained five blocks of cannabis resin.

Dr Caruana Curran said the jurors found Mr Galea guilty of conspiring to deal in cannabis, yet, not guilty of being in possession of the drug. That, she argued, amounted to an anomaly because they had found him guilty of conspiring just because he happened to be there next to Mr Muscat.

Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, Mr Justice David Scicluna and Mr Justice Joseph Micallef, sitting in the Criminal Court of Appeal, ruled that the jurors’ verdict was based on a suspicion, probably a strong suspicion, but that was not enough to find guilt according to law.

The judges said that after closely examining the proceedings they concluded that Mr Galea had been found guilty on incorrect facts and so acquitted him.