A Briton accused of conspiracy to deal with ecstasy in the summer of 2006 was this evening convicted by a jury after nearly 11 hours of deliberation. Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono jailed him for 25 years and fined him €60,000.
Steve Marsden, 48, had been found in possession of over 50,000 pills hidden in his jeep when he arrived from Sicily on July 9, 2006, the night of the World Cup final.
When originally arraigned in 2006, Mr Marsden had been charged with importing 28 packets, containing 50,000 ecstasy pills, with the Lacoste crocodile logo embossed on them. He had also been accused of trafficking in the drug.
However, two months into the compilation of evidence, court expert Mario Mifsud, a pharmacist, had testified that the pills were not illegal.
It turned out that the pills contain the chemical mCPP, which shares several pharmacological properties with MDMA (ecstasy) but was not illegal in Malta when the find was allegedly made.
The charges of importing and pushing drugs were subsequently dropped and the Attorney General issued a bill of indictment accusing Mr Marsden of conspiring to deal in ecstasy.
Mr Marsden appealed, arguing that since the drugs were not illegal the "charge as it stands is an invention of the Attorney General in his unfettered right to charge as he deems fit".
The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice David Scicluna and Mr Justice Joseph Micallef, threw out the appeal and ruled that "a person may be found guilty of, say, conspiracy to import heroin into Malta even though the stuff he eventually brings into Malta turns out to be baking powder. It all depends on what was actually agreed upon between the conspirators and, more specifically, on the object of the conspiracy".
The appeals court said that it was not up to it to decide whether "it was "real" ecstasy or "fake" ecstasy, adding that the Attorney General was clearly of the opinion that it was "real" and Mr Marsden disagreed. However, at this point it was up to a jury to decide.
The jurors this evening returned an 8-1 guilty verdict.
In submissions on punishment, defence counsel Joe Brincat said his client had a clean conduct sheet and this was his first run. The amount he expected to be paid was only Lm5,000.
The head of the Prosecution Unit, Anthony Barbara said Mr Marsden had been found guilty of a very serious crime. He said that there was the intent to harm Maltese society. If these pills were sold, they would have made €500,000.