Lost packet of cigarettes gets Frenchman charged with laptop theft

22-year-old international commerce student Maxime Tarraso was charged him with the theft of the Apple Macbook Air and Asus laptops

A court has heard how a misplaced packet of cigarettes triggered a sequence of events which ended up with a French tourist being remanded in custody overnight, after he pleaded not guilty to having attempted to leave Malta with two laptops belonging to his female flatmates.

Inspector Neville Mercieca arraigned 22-year-old international commerce student Maxime Tarraso before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit this morning and charged him with the theft of the Apple Macbook Air and Asus laptops. Tarraso was arrested at the airport at around 6:30pm yesterday evening, after he had left the flat he had been sharing with the two French girls, with the laptops in his possession.

One of Tarraso’s flatmates, Caroline Le Roux, testified how she had discovered the laptops to be missing after they had returned from the beach at around 4pm. 

She said that one key could open the doors to two rooms - her room which he had been sharing with a friend and Tarraso’s. “We had asked the landlord to change the locks,” she added.

Alarmed by the fact that they found the door unlocked, they then noticed both laptops missing, she said. “In the meantime, we had realised that Maxime had left without telling us. His suitcase was gone and so were his things and we thought that he had gone to the airport.

"We caught a taxi to the airport, he dropped us off outside the airport police station. We reported the theft. All we knew was that he was due to catch a flight to Paris. We got to the police station at 4:40pm, and the police had checked the flights and found one departing at 5pm.” 

Cross-examined by lawyer Leontine Calleja, she said that she had known the accused for 7 or 8 months. She had come to the islands with a group of four girls and two boys. One female student had left last week and one male left yesterday morning.

Asked if she had been in a relationship with the accused, she said that she had slept with him two months ago, in France, but that he had decided to end their romance after this episode. “He had tried to sleep with me in Malta, and I said no.”

Calleja suggested that the witness had been angry at him for ending their relationship, but she said that she was not and had come to Malta in a group, to have fun.

The lawyer explained to the court that her client had told her that she had given their laptop to the accused, a suggestion denied by the witness. “We live far away from each other in France, if I lent it to him, how would he be able to return it?” said La Roux.

In over two hours of painstaking testimony, it emerged that the friends had fallen out some days before, after the man had accused the two females of taking a packet of cigarettes of his. They were restored to speaking terms after the cigarettes were later found downstairs.

But legal aid lawyer Leontine Calleja raised doubts as to the veracity of the girls’ testimonies and whether it was possible that the police report had been a mise en scene, prompted by the missing cigarettes.

The lawyer asked about an incident in which both girls’ mobile phones had been stolen one night at Paceville. Asked by the defence, she admitted that the accused had let her use his mobile phone repeatedly, in spite of her claim to have not been on good terms with him.

“I am not crazy and I don’t want to get the police involved just because someone doesn’t want to continue a relationship with me. I never seek revenge. He is insinuating that I wanted to take revenge.”

The second flatmate, Fatoumata Kiota, from St. Patrice, testified. Kiota had been "very good friends" with the accused, for several months, until the issue of the missing cigarettes caused them to fall out irreparably. 

Kiota explained that she had also once been in a sexual relationship with the accused, but they had ended the relationship amicably. She said that her friend had wanted a serious relationship with Tarraso, but he had not. “Caroline and I are close friends. She would often cry about the situation,” she said.

She, too, told the court that they had found the door to their shared room unlocked. In court today, she could not adequately explain why, upon realising that the laptops had been missing, the two girls had taken a taxi to the airport and reported the theft to the police 

The defence submitted that the accused was not contesting that the laptops belong to the girls, but that he was claiming that they had set him up, insisting that they had given them to him.

"So because of the disagreement over the cigarettes, you reached the conclusion that he stole your laptops. " asked the lawyer. Given the timeline, she pointed out that in 35 minutes, they had returned home, noticed the missing laptops, deduced who had taken them, where he was going and went to the airport. She said it was more like an hour and a half.

Tarraso pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody. He is expected to give his version of events to the court tomorrow.