Sixth man charged over Rabat abduction

A 25-year-old Rabat man, Luke John Milton, has been charged in connection with the abduction of Carlos Schembri last month.

He was granted bail by Magistrate Charmaine Galea after his arraignment. Bail was secured by a deposit of €3,000 and a personal guarantee of €5,000.

A protection order was issued in favour of Carlos Schembri and his family and the court warned that if breached Milton would face up to two years in prison and incur a €7,000 fine.

Milton is the sixth person to be charged over the kidnap and had to be arraigned separately after receiving treatment in hospital.

A court yesterday granted bail to Christian Borg, 28, from Swieqi, Thorne Mangion, 27, from Qormi, Burton Azzopardi, 20, from Bormla and Jeremy Borg, 20, from Qormi after hearing several witnesses testify in connection with the same incident.

A bail request for co-accused Tyson Grech, 26, from Senglea, was refused after the magistrate observed him attempting to intimidate a witness in the courtroom.

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Milton was assisted by lawyers Stefano Filletti and Matthew Xuereb during his arraignment before this morning.

Inspectors Sarah Zerafa and Roderick Attard, together with AG prosecutor Karl Muscat, charged Milton with kidnapping Carlos Schembri, holding him against his will, threatening him with death, slightly injuring him, stealing €1,000 in cash, as well as other items from Schembri, criminal conspiracy, breaching the peace and breaching bail conditions.

If convicted of the latter charge, Milton risks losing his €100,000 bail bond, which had been imposed in a separate case in which he is accused of defrauding €700,000 from a client during a cryptocurrency transaction.

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Defence contests legality of arrest

Milton’s defence lawyers, Stefano Filletti and Matthew Xuereb, made detailed submissions during today’s sitting in which they argued that the man’s arrest had been performed illegally. The defence argued that as, Milton had been granted police bail to receive treatment in hospital and was then taken back into custody, a second arrest warrant was needed. After hearing submissions from both sides, the court, however, disagreed with this argument and declared the arrest to be valid.

Filletti warned that further proceedings may be in the pipeline, after the prosecutor told the court that 'we could never arraign him by summons, your honour. Yesterday many civilian witnesses testified, and he knows who they are'. Milton would have all the time he needed to approach witnesses, the prosecutor had said.

Further court proceedings would be filed in view of this statement, Filletti argued, as “now we know that the prosecution arraigned him under arrest abusively as part of its scheming.”

Bail granted

The defence then requested bail, which was objected to by the prosecution. “The most worrying aspect is the accused’s character,” Muscat told the court. “He has a pending case over the theft of cryptocurrency worth €700,000,” he submitted, to loud objections by the defence which argued that he could not raise pending proceedings as an objection to bail. 

Undeterred, Muscat continued to speak. “He breached his bail, secured by €100,000. Notwithstanding this hefty security, he did not hold back from allegedly committing this offence.” All of the civilian witnesses who testified in the proceedings against the others will need to testify again, to confirm what they had testified, Muscat submitted, noting that some of the witnesses who testified yesterday appeared hostile. He asked that no bail be granted at least until they testified again.

Filletti disagreed. “It remains that the power of arrest is an exception to the principal rule of liberty. The legal drafting is not cosmetic… It should be the prosecution who should be red in the face insisting that the accused be remanded in custody. For some reason it is the inverse.” 

The lawyer said he had heard no reasons for bail to be withheld. “Character is not the most important reason,” said the lawyer. “Those would be the fear of escape and fear of the accused tampering with evidence.”

He pointed out that the accused had been allowed unsupervised in a hospital ward and could have easily fled during the night. 

On tampering, he asked whether Milton had contacted any of the witnesses. “The fact that a witness was hostile towards my colleague is probably because of something he said,” Filletti submitted. “He could have sent his sister, cousin, but no contact [with the witnesses] was made.”

The other witnesses had already testified in separate proceedings against Milton’s co-accused and was preserved, pointed out the lawyer, adding that he had read the testimony in the newspapers.

“On trustworthiness, I don’t know what else can be said. Milton knew that the other accused had been charged and granted bail, bar one, from the newspapers. You can’t say he didn’t know. He could have tried to escape, but did not… Why oppose bail, if all the other accused are now on bail, except one who misbehaved in the courtroom?” 

The lawyer said it was a sacrosanct right of the individual, lashing out at the practise of the prosecution always objecting to bail.

Xuereb added that Milton had not been given time to convalesce after spending 2 weeks in hospital. “Let's call a spade a spade and be fair with the accused.”

Muscat pointed out that bail was not a sacrosanct right, as there were limitations to it which were listed in the law. “At this early stage, public interest outweighs the right to bail. There are still the witnesses who testified yesterday who need to testify again in this case.”

Xuereb interjected again, arguing that the AG had not mentioned that there is an inquiry underway. “Why not mention it? Why not say that all the witness evidence is preserved in the inquiry?”

The court, after hearing the bail submissions, briefly suspended the sitting to issue its decree.

The magistrate returned to the courtroom after a few minutes and upheld the request for bail. She ordered Milton not to communicate or approach the victim or any of the witness, sign a bail book twice weekly and observe a curfew. Bail was secured by a deposit of €3,000 and personal guarantee of €5,000. A protection order was issued in favour of Carlos Schembri and his family. The court warned that if breached he would face up to two years in prison and a €7,000 fine.