Parish priest’s forgiveness gets thief reduced jail time

A thief jailed for three years over theft of gold items from the Zabbar parish church, has had his sentence reduced on appeal after an appeal for clemency from the Zabbar parish chaplain.

Aaron Axisa, 31, was jailed for three years for the 2009 theft, and had his jail term reduced by four months.

During his original sentencing, chaplain Fr Sebastian Caruana took the witness stand, explaining that the theft went unnoticed until the first Sunday mass at 6am as he opened the tabernacle. There he realised that the lock had been tampered with, and soon afterwards realised that the lock to the statue's niche had also been broken, and jewellery from inside the niche stolen.

The priest than realised that a laptop placed beside the church altar had been stolen, while claiming the tabernacle itself had incurred over €2,000 in damages.

The priest has also stated that he was forgiving the accused, who was found guilty of the charges of theft, breaking into a place of worship, and relapsing.

In a decision on his appeal today, Mr Justice Lawrence Quintano decreed that the guilty verdict could not be revoked because Axisa's guilty had been well proven. Additionally, the police had already given Axisa the chance to return the stolen gold, which he did not. Since then, no steps had been taken by Axisa to return the gold to its rightful owners.

The court instead noted that Axisa had a serious drug problem at the time of the theft which had now been placed under control. Quintano upheld the conviction by the first court, but reduced the jail terms by four months considering the parish priest's forgiveness.