Battling a missing man’s legacy of lies and debt

Mario Pace is a broken man. He is the victim of a sweet-talking young man whose promise of help turned out to be a toxic vortex of deceit and debt.

Pace’s story is intertwined with the fate of Terence Gialanze, the ‘sweet-talking’ 24-year-old, who went missing in 2012. Gialanze’s disappearance remains a mystery and the magisterial inquiry remains open, 10 years down the line. But his victims continue to suffer to this day. Pace, 60, was left fighting in court to save the house he lives in after being coaxed to put it up as collateral for Gialanze’s debts.

This story starts in 2011 when Pace received a bill for €5,000 from the authorities to re-deem the emphytheusis on his Marsaxlokk home.

Pace was unemployed and unable to work because of a serious workplace injury he sustained a few years earlier. He was deemed vulnerable by psychologists and the bill panicked him.

In search of a solution, Pace was introduced to Gialanze by a relative. Cash-strapped and fearing that he would lose his house, Pace believed Gialanze’s offer to help was genuine and plausible.

The house as collateral

The young man, who styled himself as a businessman, would settle Pace’s bill if he put up his house as collateral for a bank loan.

Pace was told the ‘loan’, which was actually an overdraft of €200,000, was intended for a business venture and once the bank cleared it, the outstanding bill would be settled.

In April 2011, Pace appeared as guarantor for Gialanze on a bank contract, confident that the promise of a successful business would mean early settlement of the bank loan and the lifting of the guarantee.

Pace never received the promised €5,000 to settle his housing bill and in January 2015, three years after Gialanze’s disappearance, the bank opened a court case against Gialanze and Pace, to recoup the outstanding debt. The case is ongoing.

Constitution of debt

But Pace’s saga did not end with the bank loan and seven months later, in November 2011, he was coaxed to act as guarantor in a constitution of debt agreement worth €100,000, which Gialanze owed an individual called Anthony Mizzi.

Gialanze had warned Pace that unless he acted as guarantor he would be on his own in trying to solve the issue with the bank.

In his vulnerable state, Pace accepted but was comforted by the fact that Gialanze would put up his apartment, Bentley and BMW X5 as the first guaran-tees. However, Gialanze’s possessions were not included in the actual contract drawn up by the notary, leaving Pace fully exposed.

It is this agreement, which is at the heart of Pace’s latest troubles.

In January 2013, barely two months after Gialanze went missing, Mizzi sought to recoup his money by calling on Pace to settle the dues given that he had stood as guarantor.

Pace took the matter to court. He asked for the November 2011 contract to be declared null and void, claiming it was illicit because it was a case of usury.

Mizzi denied the claims, insisting the money owed was not the repayment of a loan but money forked out for a “business venture” with Gialanze.

The court ruled against Pace but accepted evidence submitted that part of the €100,000 had actually been paid by Gialanze and the remaining balance due to Mizzi was €44,000.

The court of appeal confirmed the judgment, leaving Pace liable for €44,000 as guarantor on the agreement.

Terence Gialanze’s father not allowed to testify

But Pace is now contesting the court’s decision not to allow Gialanze’s father, Walter Gialanze, to testify in the case. Walter Gialanze had been living abroad at the time and the court moved to close proceedings without listening to Walter’s testimony.

Subsequently, Pace asked for Walter Gialanze to testify during the appeal’s stage, having also obtained a sworn affidavit from him. But this was also denied by the Appeal’s Court.

In constitutional proceedings filed by his lawyer Tonio Azzopardi, Pace argues that Walter Gialanze had been listed as a witness in the case from the very start of proceedings and thus had to be allowed to testify.

Pace argues Walter’s testimony is important to the case since he stepped in a number of times to bail out his son when faced with angry creditors. Walter Gialanze had also forked out several payments to Mizzi in the two months before his son went missing.

Citing case law, Azzopardi says that the courts have made exceptions, grounded in law, allowing witnesses to testify at appeal’s stage if they are deemed important for the better administration of justice despite their names not having been notified from the start.

“If the law allows exceptions to the rule when the name [of a witness] is not listed, how much more should the law allow a witness to testify given the name had been listed [when the case was filed],” Azzopardi says in his submissions with the Constitutional Court.

The lawyer claims that Pace’s human rights to a fair hearing and effective remedy at law were breached when the courts decided not to allow Walter Gialanze to testify or accept that his affidavit be presented as proof.

Notary’s questionable behaviour

Azzopardi is also asking the Constitutional Court to take into consideration the behaviour of the notary who drafted the constitution of debt between Mizzi and Gialanze.

Azzopardi noted, among other things, that the notary had not asked Mizzi to present a power of attorney granted to him by his wife – he signed the contract on his own – and failed to ask Terence Gialanze to present the contract of separation from his wife.

Gialanze was listed as separated on the contract, when in actual fact he was still married.

Azzopardi is arguing that the notary’s behaviour exposed his client to unnecessary financial burdens.

Azzopardi is asking the Constitutional Court to allow Walter Gialanze to testify and determine financial compensation for his client given that his fundamental rights were breached.