Jason Decelis, the man serving a 25-year-jail term over the murder by omission of 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler, was this morning charged with drug trafficking at the law courts.

Mr Decelis, 37, pleaded not guilty to the possession of cocaine and heroin with the intent to sell and to trying to smuggle drugs into the Corradino Correctional Facility where he is serving time.

In a separate arraignment, Rita Zammit, 57 from St Paul’s Bay, was charged with trafficking the drugs by allegedly giving them to Mr Decelis at the law courts yesterday.

The prosecution, led by Police Inspector Nikolai Sant, is claiming that Ms Zammit handed Mr Decelis the drugs while he was in a court room over a pending drug case against him.

Police officers in the room noticed Ms Zammit give Mr Decelis something and then found Mr Decelis in possession of five grams of heroin, 10 grams of cocaine and 99 steroids.

Ms Zammit was granted bail against a €3,000 deposit and a personal guarantee of €9,000.

Ms Bowdler’s lifeless body was found by a farmer in a field in an area known as Ras il-Ġebel, limits of Mġarr, on May 13, 2001.

The family of three, Carmel Decelis and his wife Conċetta, both 64, and their son Jason, 36, had been jailed after they were found guilty of murder by omission by failing to take Ms Bowdler to hospital when she suffered an overdose.

Ms Decelis was jailed for 15 years, her son Jason for 25, and Mr Decelis was imprisoned for one-and-a-half years as he was cleared of murder but found guilty of involuntary homicide.