Looking back at 2021 | Drugs, money laundering, and other court dramas

End-of-year roundups are never easy, as narrowing down 365 days worth of news into 1,000 words means the end result always ends up doing meagre justice to the original stories. Of course, overshadowing everything else in court this year were the slew of ongoing cases involving Yorgen Fenech, related to the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. For logistical reasons, those cases will be dealt with in a separate article. 

Here are a few of the bigger court stories from 2021.

Money laundering arrests as focus of new FCID  

The right-hand man of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, together with his father Alfio Schembri, a director of several of the Kasco Group companies, and business partner Malcolm Scerri, as well as financial controller Robert Zammit were charged in March on multiple counts of money laundering, fraud, forgery and corruption. 

They formed part of a group of 11 people facing charges, which include former managing directors at Allied Newspapers, publishers of Times of Malta. 

The charges are linked to the sale of a printing press to Allied Newspapers and Progress Press, with the court hearing how US$5.5 million (€4.66 million) were paid in backhanders to Scerri, Adrian Hillman and Vince Buhagiar, the latter being two former managing directors at Allied Newspapers. 

Schembri was among 11 people arrested and charged on March 20 in connection with the printing press scandal and a second magisterial inquiry into alleged passport kickbacks. 

Making up the money laundering numbers 

Money laundering charges suddenly became flavour of the year after the much-awaited Moneyval report identified strategic anti-money laundering deficiencies, leading to Malta being greylisted in June. 

Aside from becoming de rigueur in drug trafficking and corruption cases, money laundering charges were also being pressed together with charges for relatively minor offences, such as cashing cheques for third parties against a fee – a service offered by a number of enterprising small grocery shops.  

A number of grocers and small business owners have, in fact, been arraigned for such offences, leading it to become something of a standing joke amongst the legal profession, who often quip that money laundering charges are being added to every minor offence to bring up the conviction numbers.But the reality is far less amusing to those who have to not only contend with criminal charges and lengthy proceedings, but also the mandatory freezing orders that accompany them.  

Major crimes  

In February, three men suspected of having supplied the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia were taken into custody. 

Brothers Adrian and Robert Agius, known as Tal-Maksar, and associate Jamie Vella were arrested as murder suspect Vince Muscat pleaded guilty in court to Caruana Galizia’s murder. 

The Agius brothers and Vella had been among 10 people arrested in December 2017 during police raids. The three had been released without charge but George Degiorgio, brother Alfred Degiorgio and Muscat were arraigned over the murder. 

Muscat pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal with the prosecution in which he supplied information in exchange for a lighter sentence. He was jailed for 15 years by madam justice Edwina Grima. 

MaltaToday had previously reported that Muscat, known as il-Koħħu, had identified two suspected gang members to the police. 

Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, were later charged with having supplied the triggermen with the explosive device.  

The various compilations of evidence against Yorgen Fenech and that against brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, also related to the murder, continue and will be discussed elsewhere in this publication. 

Murders 

Bojan Cmelik was jailed for life, with periods of solitary confinement, last October, after being convicted by a near-unanimous jury verdict of the 2018 murder of Paceville impresario Hugo Chetcuti. He was unanimously declared guilty of carrying a knife in public without a licence or permit from the Commissioner of Police, as well as assaulting and resisting police officers, who had needed to tase him several times during his arrest. 

In November, a unanimous not guilty verdict cleared Okolo Innocent Okwudili of the murder of his friend and fellow Nigerian Joseph Ezechi, who died of a single stab wound inflicted by Okwudili in an Qawra apartment in 2020. The killing was ruled to have been carried out in self-defence. 

The court of magistrates is still hearing evidence in the case against Mayumi Santos Patacsil, who was accused of fatally stabbing Marcelino Montalban Saraza, her partner of 4 years, in July. In December, the Court of Magistrates decreed that it had seen sufficient evidence to place her under a bill of indictment. Her case continues in January.  

Major successes in police drugs raids 

2021 was a very successful year for the police Drugs Squad, who are conducting ongoing prosecutions after carrying out large scale raids and several arrests, disrupting criminal networks involved in trafficking drugs. Record-breaking seizures of illegal drugs continue to be made, with 740kg of cocaine being intercepted en route to Slovenia in June and four men being charged after 136kg of cannabis hidden in olive cans were seized in a raid on a Burmarrad warehouse in August. 

More recently, in December, an Italian man was remanded in custody after being charged in connection with the discovery of 1.2kg of cocaine and a total of 14kg of cannabis in various properties. 

El Hiblu case and Amnesty campaign 

The compilation of evidence against the three youths from Ivory Coast and Guinea who are accused of hijacking a tanker which had rescued them from the sea as they made the perilous crossing from Libya to Malta in 2019 will continue in the new year. This despite magistrate Nadine Lia making steady progress in her unenviable task of hearing the approximately 100, often highly reluctant, non-anglophone witnesses testify about the sea rescue.  

The Migrants Commission, JRS Malta and the Justice and Peace Commission marked the second anniversary of the youths’ arrests by urging the authorities to drop the terrorsim charges brought against them. In November 2020, Amnesty International also launched the world’s biggest human rights campaign, calling on governments to put right injustices against individuals who are detained or persecuted in countries across the globe, and featured the ‘El Hiblu 3’. “No one should be punished for standing up for their lives and the lives of others,” Elisa De Pieri, Researcher at Amnesty International wrote at the time.