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local
news
Meinrad Calleja to appeal against
court judgement
By Ray
Abdilla
Meinrad Calleja is set to appeal against the Criminal Court judgement
which last Wednesday sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment and
a Lm30,000 fine after he was found guilty on four counts of dealing
in cocaine.
The defence team, consisting of the lawyers Dr Emmanuel Mallia and
Dr Ramona Frendo, have been preparing their appeal since last Thursday
and it is understood that later this week they will be presenting
it in court.
The appeal is expected to be long and mainly concentrated on a couple
of witnesses, notably Joseph Fenech, otherwise known as ‘Zeppi
l-Hafi' and Meinrad Calleja himself. The defence may yet again ask
that Calleja be released on bail. Even before the verdict was reached,
the Attorney General had contested the bail application, arguing
that releasing Meinrad Calleja would be too dangerous considering
the severity of the charges.
Calleja was in fact held in preventive custody for over four-and-a-half
years pending trial for his alleged involvement in another case,
that of the attempted murder of Richard Cachia Caruana, the Prime
Minister's personal assistant.
Last December, the Constitutional Court, presided by Mr Justice
Valenzia, recommended that Calleja be granted bail and found that
denial of this constituted a violation of his human rights. However,
the Criminal Court chose not to set bail before the Attorney General's
appeal was heard.
Last Wednesday the jury took just over seven hours to return a guilty
verdict on four counts of cocaine trafficking, conspiracy to drug
trafficking and cocaine possession during and before November 1993.
The trial was presided over by Mr Justice Vincent Degaetano, who
adjourned the hearing for one hour before delivering the judgement
at 9.15pm. In addition to the jail term, the sentence imposed a
Lm30,000 fine on Calleja, convertible into an additional year's
imprisonment in case of non-payment. Mr Justice Degaetano has ordered
the five years that Calleja spent in preventive custody to be immediately
deducted from the initial term, leaving him with 10 years to serve
in Kordin.
Every nine months Calleja spends in jail will count as a whole year,
thus cutting off another 30 months (two and a half-years) from the
sentence.
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