A man whose conviction on drug-trafficking charges had been based solely upon his statement released without the assistance of a lawyer has been cleared on appeal.

Roderick Castillo, 38, had been charged with ecstasy trafficking and possession and trafficking back in 2008 after he admitted to the police that he had handed over the drugs to his girlfriend so that she might smuggle them into a party which they were attending that evening.

The man was eventually declared guilty before a Magistrates’ Court , jailed nine months and fined €1,500.

An appeal was filed by the accused wherein it was argued that the first court had wrongly based his conviction upon the sole evidence brought against him, namely the statement he released without legal assistance.

Although this practice had been in line with the law applicable at the time, releasing a statement without the assistance of a lawyer was subsequently declared unconstitutional both in local and EU case-law.

The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Antonio Mizzi, referred to recent pronouncements by the European Court of Human Rights and also local courts, declaring that a person under arrest had a right to legal assistance all throughout the investigative process, even when releasing his statement.

In this case, the sole evidence against the accused had been the police statement which he had released without any legal assistance, thereby rendering his conviction as ‘unsafe,’ the court observed.

“Once… the only evidence brought against him was the statement he had released in breach of his fundamental rights to a fair hearing, then he should never have been found guilty of the charges brought against him.”

For this reason, the court ordered the removal of the man’s statement from the acts of the case and, as this was the only evidence in the case against him, revoked the previous judgment, thereby clearing the appellant of all criminal liability.

Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Amadeus Cachia were defence counsel.