The man whose 18-year jail term lay at the heart of the bribery scandal surrounding the late judge Ray Pace has been handed a five-year reduction on appeal against his prison term.
Darren Charles Desira, 41, of Żebbuġ, had landed the jail term back in November 2012, together with a €46,800 fine payable within two months after admitting before the Criminal Court to having played a minor role in the conspiracy intended to smuggle cocaine into Malta from the Netherlands 10 years earlier.
Mr Desira, then an inexperienced 26-year-old, had been targeted by the mastermind behind the conspiracy, Ġużeppi Sacco, who subsequently passed away pending criminal proceedings in his regard.
Mr Sacco had engaged Mr Desira to liase with a third man, trailer driver John Sultana, to ferry drugs from the Netherlands.
With cash supplied by Mr Sacco, Mr Desira had headed to the Netherlands, where he was to pay a supplier for just under two kilograms of cocaine.
Mr Desira never met the supplier, later identified as Hasan Ben Salah.
The highly pure cocaine was handed over to Mr Sultana, the trailer driver, and shipped to Malta through the involvement of a fourth man, Joseph Borg, after being hidden inside the drivers’ toilets on board the MV Żebbuġ.
During the proceedings in court against the drug conspirators, it emerged that Mr Desira had never handled the drug and had received just Lm2,000 (€4,658) for his role as middleman.
The other co-conspirators, John Sultana and Joseph Borg, had likewise admitted to their involvement and had been condemned, back in 2005, to 14 years imprisonment and a €51,246 fine and 13 years imprisonment and a €46,587 fine respectively.
The supplier, Mr Salah, had been extradited to Malta under a European Arrest Warrant and had undergone trial in 2009, landing a 20-year jail term and a €50,000 fine over his involvement in this and other drug consignments.
An appeal was filed against Mr Desira’s sentence wherein it was argued that the punishment had been excessive, particularly when bearing in mind his early guilty plea and his clean criminal record at the time he committed the crime.
Moreover, as the youngest player in the criminal racket, Mr Desira had purposely been sought out by other crafty individuals and had been deceived into undertaking the trip to Holland all alone, the appellant’s lawyers had argued.
It was also pointed out that the appellant had suffered delays in the criminal proceedings in his regard through no fault of his own, simply because the other co-accused, Guzeppi Sacco, had insisted on producing certain witnesses who were caught up in separate criminal proceedings.
Besides, when assessing the excessiveness or otherwise of the punishment inflicted upon him, one also had to consider the punishment meted out in respect of the other co-conspirators.
The court of appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon, Madam Justice Abigail Lofaro and Madam Justice Edwina Grima, observed that, indeed, the other accomplices had been handed down lighter punishments.
Moreover, the delay suffered by the appellant through no fault of his, needed to be taken into consideration when calibrating punishment.
The court observed further that whilst awaiting trial, Mr Desira had committed no serious brushes with the law, a factor which also warranted consideration in terms of punishment.
In the light of such considerations, the court upheld the appeal on two grounds, reducing the jail term from 18 to 13 years, whilst confirming the €46,800 fine and its terms of payment.
The payment of court expert expenses was also slashed by half, with the appellant now ordered to pay €626 instead of the former €1,251.