A magistrate yesterday ordered that a lawyer be investigated by the Commission for the Administration of Justice over his behaviour which led his client to make allegations accusing a magistrate, an official from the Attorney General’s office and a police inspector of corruption.
Magistrate Doreen Clarke said there was evidence that the lawyer misled his client into believing that his estranged wife had colluded with the judicial authorities to get him extradited.
Christian Demanuele, 39, a company director from St Paul’s Bay, two years ago wrote to the President accusing a magistrate, an official from the Attorney General’s office and a police inspector of corruption.
He was cleared of the charges brought against him after a court found that nothing of what he said was true. But he was cleared of criminal responsibility after the court found that he had been on the receiving end of “psychological” bullying from his lawyer.
Magistrate Doreen Clarke found that Mr Demanuele did not have the intention of committing any crime but was just repeating what he had been told by his lawyer.
In fact, the magistrate ordered that the Commission for the Administration of Justice be notified with the judgement so it starts an investigation into the lawyer’s behaviour.
Mr Demanuele’s case had been assigned to Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera. As in all cases, criminal cases are assigned to magistrates by lot, to avoid forum shopping.
Mr Demanuele’s allegation had also included outgoing Magistrate Carol Peralta and Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, at the time deputy Attorney General and prosecuting officer.
Magistrate Clarke found that, far from colluding, the officials in question had been the victim of a false scenario that was deliberately planted in the man's head by his lawyer.
The lawyer, Emanuel Bianco, denied telling the accused to speak to his Czech lawyer to report the alleged conflict of interest. He also told the court that he had tried to dissuade the man from sending the letter and had only been shown a part of it as they were in court, walking to a sitting.
Magistrate Clarke said there were conflicts between details in the version told by the accused and that told by defence witnesses, including his lawyer.
She concluded that there was nothing wrong with the way a European Arrest Warrant for Mr Demanuele had been issued or the haste with which he was extradited to Malta.
Neither was there anything extraordinary in the fact that his bail requests had been rejected by the court of magistrates and had been granted on appeal because the AG did not oppose it.
“There is no evidence in the acts of the proceedings that shows any form of collusion between the persons mentioned by the accused in his letter, aimed at favouring his wife or placing him at a disadvantage,” the magistrate noted. She added that the accused “seemed to realise that the conclusions he had reached...had been mistaken”.
The accused had told the court that his mistaken belief had been the result of “psychological effects caused by his traumatic detention in the Czech Republic and in Malta “as well as the things he was being told by Dr Bianco.”
While acquitting Mr Demanuele of all charges, Magistrate Clarke ordered that a copy of the judgment be delivered to the Commission for the Administration of Justice “for all action that it deems opportune”.