A juror yesterday questioned why the prosecution had not established a simple fact that could conclusively reveal who picked up a parcel, later found to contain cocaine.
Mr Justice Michael Mallia said such a detail would be established later on. However, the juror, who on Tuesday had asked whether a medical test could establish if a witness was lying, was clearly baffled that the matter had not been settled earlier.
The juror’s query refers to an ID card number and signature left on a Maltapost receipt given to the person who collected a brown-paper parcel from the Ħamrun post office, later found to contain 2.25 kilos of cocaine.
The juror raised the matter after a Maltapost employee identified Rueben Scicluna, who at the time also worked for Maltapost, as the person who had collected the parcel. The man had been acquitted of involvement in the drug deal.
The transaction is central to the case of 56-year-old Norman Bezzina of Żebbuġ who is pleading not guilty to conspiring to import, importing and being in possession of drugs on April 23, 2001.
The package in question was the second of two that arrived from Canada and which the prosecution is alleging Mr Bezzina had mailed from Toronto. The second package had been intercepted by the police.
The Maltapost worker who testified yesterday, Paul Tanti, said that at the time the police had alerted him to a suspicious package and instructed him to alert an undercover policeman, known as Il-Fox, if anyone came to collect that package. On April 23, 2001, a Maltapost driver, Mr Scicluna, turned up with the notice to collect the package and took it.
Mr Tanti said he was not the person who handled the transfer of the package to Mr Scicluna but was simply given the notice by him and, therefore, could not be sure whether he was the person to sign the receipt.
It was at this point that juror number four questioned why nobody seemed to know anything about the ID number or the signature when this was within the competence of the prosecution to prove.
Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Harrison on Tuesday told jurors Mr Bezzina had approached a friend, Simon Xuereb, who has already testified in the case, to import drugs. Mr Xuereb, who is serving a nine-year jail term for his part in the crime, would receive notices to pick up packages that arrived from Canada and he would pass them on to Mr Bezzina.
Further investigations, Mr Harrison said, revealed that another man, Anthony Gatt, who has pending court proceedings, was also approached because he had family working in the central mail room at Maltapost and that would facilitate the release of the packages.
Three other men were allegedly roped in, Charles and his son Mark Cassar and Emmanuel Gauci who had access to the Ħamrun office, but all have since been acquitted of conspiring to import, traffick and being in possession of the drugs.
Mr Gauci is expected to testify today.
Lawyers Emmanuel Mallia and Arthur Azzopardi appeared for Mr Bezzina.
Lawyer Aaron Bugeja from the Attorney General’s Office prosecuted.