A man and this two sons and daughter were remanded in custody this afternoon after pleading not guilty to trafficking Filipino workers. The court also upheld a prosecution request for their assets to be frozen.
The accused are Joseph Degiorgio 71 of Balzan, Paul Degiorgio 47 of Lija, Christopher Degiorgio, 42 or Naxxar, and Josianne Bugeja Degiorgio, 34 of Balzan.
The prosecution said that the police had been monitoring the accused for months for trafficking Filipinos to Malta.
In some cases 12 Filipinos were found to be sharing a single room. The Filipinos paid €5,000 for a contract of employment through a Filippino agent. When they arrived their contract was seized and they were given a separate one which they had to sign by force. Otherwise they would be send back. Although €5,000 was not very high by local standards, for a Filipino with a low income this was a huge sum, Police Inspector Joseph Busuttil said.
The second contract was different as it laid down different working conditions. For example, overtime was paid at part-time rate.
They got paid through JD (Joseph Degiorgio) contractors, a firm which in reality had never operated even though it was set up last year. Furthermore, no social security contributions were being paid.
Defence lawyer Joe Giglio said the difference in the contract was not in the take-home pay but in accommodation and food costs. JD Ltd through this Filipino recruitment agency, recruited cleaners to Malta, but JD made no arrangement to provide food and accommodation, Dr Giglio told the court.
One of the conditions for Filipinos to be allowed to work abroad was to have food and accommodation costs covered by the employer.
The court asked about the claim that there had been 12 or 13 people to a room.
The defence said it did not enter into such merits as the accused did not provide accommodation. Nevertheless, lawyer Franco Debono said such a room was the size of a house as it was 220 square meters.
Dr Giglio pointed out that his client had been signing the contracts as proof that the agency was delivering in its job to find candidates for the request jobs.
Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera rejected a prosecution request for a Filipino woman to testify via video conferencing. The prosecution claimed that the defendants had tried to approach the witnesses. The court said that it would come down heavily on any such attempts.
FILIPINO WOMAN TESTIFIES
Beverly Martinez, from the Philippines, then took the witness stand.
She said he came to Malta in November 2014 as her friends were already working here. She came alone. The flight costs were part of a package deal, she paid 250,000 pesos to an agent in the Philippine , covering one month accommodation in Malta, plane ticket and the processing fees.
When she came to Malta, she was met by her friend at the airport, and went to a house in Sliema. There were five Filipinos in the house. In the morning she reported to the office of Mr Clean in Balzan. They handed her another contract to sign and kept the first one. She did not know if there was any difference between the contracts. No copy of the second contract was given to her.
She said that when she came to Malta she was not aware of the conditions of work. She only got to know at a later stage. She started working three to four hours a day in a house and then started to work as a cleaner at ST Electronics and other places like Metropole Apartment. Recently she was working also at Portman International. The jobs were assigned by Mr Clean. She was paid her salary by cheque and overtime in cash. No papers or receipts were signed for the cash.
Her pay was €4.20 per hour regardless of whether it was a public holiday or not. She shared a flat in Fleur-de-Lys with four other people, paying €130 per month and bought her own food.
Questioned by the parte-civile, she said that she used to work from 2pm to 10pm at ST electronics or from 6am to 2pm depending on the shift. On the same day she also used to work at Metropole Apartments. Sometimes she also worked for an additional four hours in a school.
She recounted that she had paid the 250,000 pesos (€4,754.85) in the Philippines about a year before coming to Malta.
She still did not know what working conditions were specified in the second contract but Mr Degiorgio (senior) treated her and the others well. At times she said, she had to work extra hours even though she used to be tired, but she had signing a declaration giving her consent to work more than eight hours a day. She had no copy.
She confirmed she had not given money to Mr Clean before coming to Malta. The witness said she came to Malta to earn a better wage as for the same job in the Philippines she could be paid 400 pesos per month equivalent to €7.60 per month. She confirmed she was paid extra when she worked beyond eight hours or on a holiday.
another worker, Jeffrey Gerandai, said he came to Malta on 7 February last year to work as a cleaner. Arrangements were made by an agent. He did not know about conditions of work or accommodation. He displayed a contract he signed in the Philippines but said he did not have a copy of a second contract he signed in Malta.
He said they were 15 persons living in his flat, each paying 150 a month to the landlord Tony Castillo. There were up to four persons in the same bedroom and two showers in the whole flat. He did not choose the flat himself but was taken there. He said that he had believed the two contracts were the same even though he was not in possession of the Maltese contract. Yet when he came to Malta he was asked to pay for the accommodation and food was not free.
He used to work eight hours a day, and exhibited a number of pay slips. He got paid by cheque. The witness said he got paid a flat rate of €4.20 and in case of public holidays I would get paid also from JD apart from Mr Clean. He said he paid 350,000 pesos to his agent in staggered payments. The witness said he had not a good relationship with his supervisor Josette, saying she was always angry.
During arguments on bail, the defendants vehemently denied trying to approach any witnesses or the parte civile lawyer.
The prosecution said it had evidence contrary to their claims in the form of text messages.
The court denied them bail and ordered that in next Monday's stating the company employees will be summoned to testify.
The court also upheld a prosecution request for the freezing of assets and issued a protection order for the parte civile lawyer.
Lawyers Franco Debono, Joe Giglio and Amadeus Cachia are defence counsel. Drs Lara Dimitrijevic and Anne Marie Bisazza appeared parte civile for the workers.
Joseph Degiorgio felt unwell at the end of the sitting and an ambulance was called.