An appeal from a verdict delivered by a jury in a criminal trial cannot request a harsher punishment, the Superior Court of Appeal declared on Wednesday.
This pronouncement was made in a partial judgment delivered during appeal proceedings concerning Allan Galea, who is currently serving a six-year jail term over the murder of Anthony Borg, known as il-Bona.
An argument had broken out between the two men outside the PN club in Marsaxlokk on the evening of February 21, 2010, when Mr Galea, brandishing a knife, had allegedly challenged Mr Borg to a fight.
The latter had, in turn, fetched a firearm from his car and fired two warning shots to scare off the aggressor.
However, a scuffle broke out and il-Bona ended up suffering several stab wounds, dying shortly afterwards on the spot.
Five years later, in December 2015, his aggressor underwent a trial by jury which resulted in a verdict whereby Mr Galea was found guilty, by six votes in favour and three against, of excess in legitimate self-defence.
He was sentenced to six years imprisonment and a fine of €9,647.
An appeal was filed by the Attorney General requesting a variation of the verdict from excess in legitimate self-defence to one of wilful homicide without any mitigating factor, the application of a harsher punishment or, alternatively, a fresh hearing of the case.
In a partial judgment, the Criminal Court of Appeal, presided over by Acting Chief Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon and Justices Abigail Lofaro and Edwina Grima, upheld the argument by the defence, shooting down the appellant’s request for the application of a harsher punishment.
Even if the case were to be heard afresh and guilt was to be reaffirmed, the court could never vary the punishment in such manner as to impose a sentence more severe than the original one reached after the jury’s verdict, the court declared.
Pronouncing the Attorney General’s request in this regard as “inadmissible according to law”, the court ordered the continuation of the appeal proceedings on the other grounds.
Lawyers Joseph Giglio and Stephen Tonna Lowell are assisting Mr Galea.