A man, drawn into a 15-year long court saga over his alleged involvement in a drug trafficking conspiracy, wept in relief upon hearing that his only guilt stemmed from his admission to having smoked an occasional joint, which landed him with a €100 fine.

Christopher Mazzitelli was a man in his early 20s when, a budding football career having been cut short by injuries, he had taken up a job at a mechanic’s garage at Qormi, doing light repair works and selling spare parts.

Two sons of the owner of the business frequented the garage, situated beneath the family home.

Trouble brewed back in 2004 when the police apparently got a whiff of some underhand activity taking place inside the garage, prompting a surveillance operation by the Drugs Squad.

Officers keeping watch on the comings and goings at the garage in April 2004 had looked on and taken videos as some individuals, who allegedly had contacted one of the owner’s sons and Mr Mazzitelli, visited the place.

Upon leaving the surveilled premises, these persons were stopped by the officers, searched and taken in for questioning after drugs were allegedly found in their possession. All five told the police that they had purchased their supplies from the accused who worked at the garage.

On that same afternoon, the accused, together with Mark Pace and his brother, were arrested at Luqa when the police zoomed in on a Toyota vehicle that was stopped in the Ta’ Kandja area. All three were held as suspects in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Meanwhile, another team of officers swooped down upon the Qormi premises, entering the home overlying the garage, where they eventually arrested the fourth suspect, namely Giovanna Pace, the mother of the two co-accused brothers.

A scuffle broke out between the officers and the woman who had first allegedly locked herself in the bedroom and then put up a struggle, biting one policewoman on the thigh and pushing over another officer, while setting the family dog upon the police party.

The woman had later claimed that she had mistaken the plainclothes officer for a weapon-wielding robber and had also been stunned by pepper spray aimed at her.

All four suspects were ultimately prosecuted for their alleged involvement in a drug-trafficking conspiracy, as well as for the aggravated possession and trafficking of heroin, cocaine and cannabis resin.

Failed to prove existence of drug-trafficking deal

One month later, in May 2004, one of the Pace brothers was cleared upon lack of sufficient evidence to be placed under a bill of indictment.

Proceedings continued against the other three co-accused who, though facing the prospect of a trial before the Criminal Court, ultimately had their case heard by a magistrate after the Attorney General issued his direction in January 2015 for proceedings to continue before the Magistrates’ Courts in terms of law.

In June 2016, Mr Mazzitelli and the other two accused parted ways as the court directed the separation of proceedings.

Taking the witness stand in February 2017, Mr Mazzitelli had recounted how at the time of his arrest he used to work at the garage where he met Mark Pace when the latter turned up at the workplace between spells spent behind bars.

Whilst admitting under oath that in his youth, he used to smoke cannabis joints, the accused had insisted that he had “never touched heroin or cocaine,” nor had he ever trafficked drugs.

Following his arrest, the man claimed to have never returned to the mechanic’s garage.

Two witnesses, who had first claimed to have bought drugs from the accused, had years later supplied a “totally different version” in court, stating that they had originally made up the whole story since they had been feeling “sick” owing to their drug dependency and had simply wanted to escape further questioning by the police.

Another witness failed to identify the accused in court. Only one of the witnesses identified the accused as “the man in a red jumper” who had sold him the drugs.

The court, presided over by Magistrate Audrey Demicoli, observed that all these witnesses had over the years been involved in drug cases and had likely pinpointed the accused so as not to get into trouble with Mark Pace, the real supplier of the drugs.

Their testimony was deemed untrustworthy and not credible by the court. After examining both direct and circumstantial evidence, the court concluded that “the prosecution failed to prove that there existed any drug-trafficking agreement between the accused and third parties”. Nor was it proved that the accused had trafficked drugs from the garage where he had been employed.

All that turned out to have been sufficiently proved was the fact that at the time of the alleged incident, the accused used to smoke cannabis joints, which, upon his own admission in open court, amounted to simple possession.

This offence, coupled with the charge of recidivism over a similar 2002 conviction, landed the accused with a €100 fine.

In separate proceedings, Mark Pace was condemned to a 15-month jail term and a €5,000 fine after pleading guilty to trafficking drugs.

The other co-accused, Giovanna Pace, was acquitted of all drug-related charges, being found guilty of threatening police officers, slightly injuring one of them, violently resisting arrest and refusing to obey legitimate orders. She was handed a 12-month jail term suspended for two years.

Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi was defence counsel to Mr Mazzitelli and Ms Pace.