Women faces trial for smuggling heroin

Anna Spiteri, from Marsa, stands accused not only of trafficking drugs, but also of having associated with persons for the importation, sale and trafficking of medicine and other drugs without a license.

On Tuesday, the court heard about Spiteri's arrest as she arrived in Malta, and customs officials who scanned her luggage noticed that it contained another piece of luggage within it.

When asked what it contained, Spiteri denied that there was anything inside. However three heavy laptop cases were found inside, raising officials’ further suspicion.

Customs official Larry Fenech, confirmed that Anna Spiteri had stated that the luggage was hers while David Scerri, an official in the customs enforcement unit, testified that he noticed that there seemed to be a black plastic bag sown in the bag and he tore it to check personally. 

Inside one of the laptop cases he found a bag which later transpired to contain the drug heroin.

Appearing for Spiteri, defense Lawyer Malcom Mifsud maintained that his client had nothing to do with the contents of the bags, as they were given to her by Nagi Al Margash, her associate in Tunisia, as a gift for someone else.

According to testimonies, Spiteri denied knowing what they were and having ever seen the laptop cases, while crying and saying they had betrayed her and that she thought it was a gift for her niece.  

Superintendent Stephen Gatt (Inspector in the Drug Squad at the time) testified that the luggage contained women's clothes and children's clothes.  He also added that the Spiteri claimed she had a sexual relationship with Nagi Al Margash, whom she used to meet in a hotel in Sliema, and that it was the fifth time that she had gone to Tunisia.

In a statement Spiteri had told the police that she had gone to Tunisia for four days to meet a doctor in a flat there. She said the doctor's certificate was held by Al Margash who paid for her ticket. She had also said that Al Margash packed her bag and only handed it to her the moment she was about to leave and even though she thought it was rather heavy, she was not suspicious of its contents since she thought he was an honest man. At first she thought the case contained some books and later some vases as a gift, she said.

Al Margash told her to give the case to the 2 men she would meet in the Maltese airport and they would then return her clothes to her.  He also arranged for the two Arab men to meet her upon arriving in Malta. When they spoke on the phone, he was the one to call her through a private-marked number and she only managed to obtain his number the day before leaving.

On being questioned however, the two men waiting for her outside denied knowing her and that they were there only because they were taxi drivers, the court heard.

Anna Spiteri is currently a witness in the cases against the two Libyan men. The defence claimed that what she had testified in these cases had been verified.

The trial continues. Dr Leonard Caruana is appearing for the Attorney General's office.