A man, arrested during a drugs raid on a Qormi garage on Tuesday, was remanded in custody at the Corradino Correctional Facility rather than the forensic unit at Mount Carmel Hospital which was not a Prison Ward in terms of law.

Renald Baldacchino, 39, from Qormi, was charged with cocaine and heroin trafficking, aggravated possession of the drugs as well as with having allegedly committed such crime during the operative period of a suspended sentence.

He was further charged with breaching three earlier bail decrees and with being a relapser.

One year ago, in March 2018, the same man had been arrested following a similar raid on his garage in Qormi which had been converted into a drugs den.

A year down the line, the man landed back in court where the prosecution explained how last Tuesday the police had raided a garage used by the accused, finding suspected heroin and crack cocaine, together with weighing scales.

The garage was set up “like a shop for drugs” Inspector Frank Anthony Tabone said, adding that the police also had footage of the accused exchanging drugs for money.

Defence counsel Noel Bianco registered a not guilty plea on behalf of the accused and informed the court that no request for bail was to be made at that stage.

However, the court was requested to recommend that the accused be detained at the Forensic Unit at Mount Carmel Hospital.

This request, however, was flatly turned down by the court, presided over by magistrate Joseph Mifsud, who, citing legislation regarding the designation of places as prisons, pointed out that the law spoke of “Ward 10 at Mount Carmel Hospital,” a ward which had been shut down since 1998.

The law made no mention of the “Forensic Unit”, the magistrate observed, adding that this meant that for the past twenty years recommendations by the courts for arrested persons to be sent to that unit had been erroneous in this regard. The law had not been amended to list the Forensic Unit as a prison, the court pointed out.

For this reason, the court turned down the request and ordered that the matter be brought to the attention of the Director General of the Law Courts, the Attorney General, the Minister for the Interior and the Justice Minister for the necessary changes to be effected accordingly.

Inspectors Frank Anthony Tabone, Alfredo Mangion and Roderick Agius prosecuted.

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