News • 07 September 2003

Magistrate’s rape ‘joke’ does not go down well

It could have been midsummer madness that made the usually scrupulous magistrate make his, not so funny, quip. Often things are said in jest and immediately regretted and it is not easy to guess what was going through Lawrence Quintano’s mind before he made it.
According to several eyewitnesses, faced with a Libyan accused of smuggling into Malta a ‘sleeping’ monkey in his trousers, Quintano said: "Would he not have done better to rape a girl?"
A lawyer present in the courtroom took the remark as ‘a joke’ and told this newspaper he did not feel the magistrate’s remark should be taken seriously.
Present in the room at that time, among several men, was also The Times reporter Sharon Spiteri, who is said to have flinched when Quintano blurted out his gaffe. She, and others in the courtroom, did not take the magistrate’s quip so lightly.
The Libyan with the sleeping monkey was fined Lm 312.50 August 21 and sentenced to nine days in jail. The sleeping monkey was confiscated.