A 43-year-old man from Lija has been cleared of a string of seven thefts from a Sliema hotel after a court ruled that closed circuit footage of the man passing through reception was not strong enough evidence for a conviction. 

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli ruled that the prosecution had only brought circumstantial evidence to link Christopher Sammut to the thefts and that this did not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt as required by law. 

From the outset, Mr Sammut denied his involvement in the theft of a total of almost €11,000 worth of items from safes in different rooms at the Fortina Hotel between April 2011 and February 2012. He had also been charged with damaging the door to gain entry. 

Several items including clothes, wallets, cash and jewellery had been stolen, to the detriment of tourists staying at the hotel. 

The court heard how the hotel was not insured for these thefts but had reimbursed the tourists anyway. 

The police submitted CCTV footage of a man, who the prosecution insisted was the accused, passing through reception on the days of the thefts. The person could not be identified through the footage. Neither could the person driving the rented car which the police said was being rented by the accused. 

Magistrate Demicoli ruled that "circumstantial evidence was not enough to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that it was the accused who had committed the thefts". Moreover, she said the police had not even brought evidence to prove that the car seen being driven out of the hotel car park was rented by the accused. 

This, she said, left her no option but to clear the man of all the charges brought against him. 

Police Inspectors Jason Sultana and Jesmond Micallef prosecuted while lawyer Edward Gatt was defence