Car importer acquitted of fraud, misappropriation

A court has acquitted a man accused of misappropriating the registration tax for a vehicle which he imported and failed to register, as proceedings were halted by the victim withdrawing his criminal complaint.

Police inspectors Jonathan Ferris and Matthew Vella had charged 58-year-old Francis Caruana from Qawra with fraud, misappropriation and breaching the conditions of three suspended sentences, breaching a probation order and recidivism, after Lawrence Cassar had filed a criminal complaint against Caruana in 2011.

Magistrate Josette Demicoli had been told how Cassar and his brother had imported a delivery van from the UK and had engaged the accused to register it with Transport Malta.

Francis Caruana had allegedly requested €2,500 for this service and had been given a cheque for that amount, together with the van's logbook and other documents. A criminal complaint was filed after the registration failed to materialise.

The subsequent police investigation revealed that although the accused had never registered the vehicle with the authorities, he had cashed the cheque for €2,500 on the same day that he received it.

Caruana, who had been handed a seven-year sentence for misappropriation in 2015 in an almost identical case, was arrested.

In a sitting last October, the victim, Cassar, informed the court that the accused had reimbursed him with the full amount and that he was therefore withdrawing his criminal complaint, also declaring his wish that criminal proceedings against the accused cease.

The Attorney General, in his note of renvoi, had argued out that the charges were rendered aggravated by the fact that the misappropriation had been carried out on a thing consigned to the accused by way of his business. This, the Attorney General argued, meant that the prosecution was obliged to continue proceedings despite the withdrawal of the criminal complaint.

But the court, after examining whether the aggravating factor emerged from the evidence, ruled that it was absent. “All that emerges is that the accused received money to register the vehicle with Transport Malta, whether or not this was done by the accused in some particular role does not.” In view of the withdrawal of the criminal complaint the court said it had no other option but to declare the case closed and to acquit the accused.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Veronique Dalli were defence counsel.