The inmate who created the Dom Mintoff Foundation, Josef Grech, was yesterday charged in court with defrauding an illiterate second-hand car dealer of thousands of euro.

Taking the witness stand, dealer Victor Muscat said that 31-year-old Mr Grech had sold him two cars for which he paid him €125 and €600 respectively.

He paid Mr Grech using two cheques on which he scribbled the amounts and signed them off, handing them to Mr Grech to fill in the rest, he said.

He added that he did not know how to read or write but could write numbers.

Mr Grech then changed the amounts and cashed one cheque for €16,000 and the other for €12,500.

Taking the witness stand, Romuald Attard, a senior manager at the Bank of Valletta, said that three cheques had in fact been cashed, two amounting to €32,000 and a third to €12,500.

He confirmed that the person who cashed the cheques was the accused.

Just before the sitting, Mr Grech, who refers to himself as “Prof Grech”, sat in the dock staring at reporters and at one point said to them with a smirk on his face that he used to be just like them before he was jailed. Speaking last week from prison, Mr Grech insisted his jail term, for fraud-related charges, had nothing to do with the foundation.

Despite the foundation’s immediate rejection by both the former Prime Minister’s family and the Labour Party, Mr Grech, vowed to formally launch it the day after he is released.