Updated | Legal wrangle means murder jury postponed again

Updated at 3.30pm with statement by parte civile lawyers

The trial by jury of Etienne Bartolo, known as il-Vojt, has been postponed again after a last-minute obstacle was raised by the lawyers of the victim's family.

Parte civile lawyers Franco Debono, Amadeus Cachia, Marion Camilleri and Angie Muscat, argued that jurors could have been prejudiced by media coverage and a clerical error, which saw the jury postponed by 48 hours on Monday.

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Bartolo is due to be tried for knifing a man to death in Birkirkara in March 2017.

The lawyers appearing for the victim’s family filed the last-minute constitutional application to stop the trial. However, Mr Justice Robert Mangion ruled against the application in a decree handed down at noon today.

But after the court was notified with the decision, lawyer Amadeus Cachia informed Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera that he would be filing an appeal from the decree. 

This effectively means that until the appeal is decided, no jury may take place.

The judge said she had no option but to put the jury off until after the constitutional court ruled on the decree.

The judge called the jurors, who had been waiting for more than three hours for the jury to start, back in to explain the situation.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo are Bartolo’s defence counsel. In a statement to the media they deplored the behaviour of the parte civile lawyers. "The parte civile resorted to this measure the night before the jury was empanelled, despite it being appointed for several months. The accused wants justice to be served but now he has to wait again.”

Lawyer Kevin Valletta and Maria Francesca Spiteri from Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting.

Parte civile lawyers react

Lawyers for the victim’s family said if there was anyone who wished justice to be served was the victim’s family.

“Justice should be served by means of a fair trial, according to law and untainted by irregularities and continuous media leakages,” the parte civile lawyers said in response to the statement by the accused’s defence team.

Lawyer Amadeus Cachia insisted the victim’s family would not be intimidated by the defence lawyers in their legitimate exercise of their rights.

“It is sufficient to point out that the jury was postponed due to an administrative error where the list of jurors was not published in the government Gazette according to Article 606 of the Criminal Code and surely not the fault of victim’s family. The victim’s family eagerly looks forward to justice being served according to law without a trial conditioned by the media with continues leaks starting weeks before the trial was scheduled,” Cachia said.

He insisted that it was the court’s decision on Monday to postpone the jury because of a serious administrative error. “It was once again the court that postponed the jury on Wednesday, and Edward Gatt should make it clear whether his criticism is directed to the court order,” Cachia said.