Man accused of Sliema burglaries denies new charges

A 43-year-old second hand car dealer from Georgia, who is currently in custody on charges of forming part of an Eastern European gang behind several burglaries has pleaded not guilty to a new charge of stealing jewellery from an apartment in Sliema in January 2015.

Inspector Fabian Fleri, Jonathan Ransley and Kurt Zahra told magistrate Marseanne Farrugia that the new charges against Amirani Gazdeliani were added after new evidence came to light.

Defence lawyer Noel Bianco contested the validity of the man’s arrest on the grounds that the accused had been charged 13 months ago for similar crimes which took place during the same time frame. He argued that this charge should have been added to the other charges and should not have led to a separate arraignment. He explained that there were five people accused of forming part of the gang, that the accused was already charged and was in prison without bail.

Inspector Fleri informed the court that the accused had been arraigned last year, together with four others, and charged with forming part of a criminal organisation responsible for a number of break-ins.

Those charges are currently being dealt with by magistrate Josette Demicoli, he said. “Every theft that he committed was specified in separate charges,” argued the inspector, “not as a continuous offence. The only charges that specified a time frame were receiving stolen goods, participating in a criminal conspiracy and using false documents, none of which are similar to those he is being charged with today.”

There was some initial confusion as to the identity of the accused. Upon being arrested, the inspector went on, Gazdeliani had been found to be carrying a Lithuanian ID card and Lithuanian driving licence, both of which matched the details he had given, also this morning. But checks with the Lithuanian authorities had revealed that the numbers of those documents actually belonged to two women, neither of whom had reported the documents as missing.

Police had cross-checked the man’s name with the Interpol database and while no criminal convictions were found for the accused, the international police organisation had also sent the Maltese authorities a photograph which was clearly a picture of Gazdeliani.

The court turned down the request for bail.