Pilatus Bank defence hindered by 'incompatible forensic software', court hears

Lawyers for a former Pilatus Bank official have told a court that they are unable to access important digital evidence because the copies provided to them can only be read with specialised forensic software that doesn’t run on government computers.

This emerged as the compilation of evidence against the bank’s former Head of Legal, Claudeanne Sant Fournier, continued before magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech earlier this week. 

Sant Fournier’s defence had requested court-appointed IT expert Martin Bajada to testify and to assist it in accessing hard disks that the prosecution had exhibited as evidence. Defence lawyer Stefano Filletti told the court that the defence was being “blindsided” because it had no visibility of crucial evidence that had been exhibited in the proceedings. 

The hard disks are understood to contain all the documents and digital data that had been seized by the police from the now-shuttered bank.

Bajada had declared that the contents of the drives could only be read using specific forensic software which, although provided on the hard drive itself, does not run on all computers, in particular the government-owned computers which are used in court.

Presiding Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech instructed Filletti to appoint an expert to examine the hard disk, but the lawyer refused, arguing that this was the State’s evidence and both sides should be able to access the data.

The lawyer also pointed out that the cost of appointing experts would create a “huge and unnecessary” burden on the defence, expressing incredulity at the fact that after spending over €7 million on a magisterial inquiry, the resulting data was "still unreadable" by all the parties.

The sitting had been meant to hear a witness from the UK testify by video link. The Criminal Court had ordered the Attorney General to remit the case file to the Court of Magistrates for more evidence to be heard, as happens in the majority of compilations of evidence. However, when this was done, the Attorney General had not included the British witness on that list of evidence. 
This meant that the Court of Magistrates was not authorised to hear the witness testify, despite having made all the necessary preparations.

The case was adjourned to March.

Lawyers Stefano Filletti and Kathleen Grima are defence counsel. Lawyers Kevin Valletta and Marthese Grech are prosecuting on behalf of the Office of the Attorney General.