Accused men take the witness stand in Libya drug-running jury

The two men on trial accused of smuggling nearly 20 kilogrammes of cannabis resin, transported into Malta by speedboat six years ago, have told a jury that they had not known that what they had been going to pick up was a consignment of drugs.

40 year-old former barman Godfrey Gambin had been arrested at Xemxija in July 2010 together with Libyan Adel Mohammed Babani, 51 and another Libyan after police had found the cannabis resin in bags which the men had been seen throwing out of their car whilst approaching a police roadblock. The men face life imprisonment for the charges.

The suspected mastermind of the operation, Nabeil Ibrahim Saleh, 44, also from Libya had been arrested with the other two men but had skipped bail and absconded. He has been on the run ever since.

Gambin testified this morning. He told the jury that that he had no idea that the bags which Nabeil had been carrying contained drugs. He said that he had thought that the bags contained clothes but had become suspicious when he saw them with his own eyes. When he then saw the police roadblock up ahead, the penny dropped and he threw the bags out of the car, said the accused.

But prosecuting lawyer Nadya Attard, from the Office of the Attorney General pointed out that Gambin had recalled the incident in greater detail this morning than he had 6 years ago.

Babani also testified, this morning, explaining that “the Bulgarian” had called him two weeks before on Nabeil's instructions. They met in Mosta. Nabeil needed to come to Malta to sort out a visa for his wife, and asked him to go pick him up on Babani's boat. He was later given the exact date and time: the 29th at 0300hrs, he said.

Cross-examined by Attard, however,it emerged that he had not mentioned the Bulgarian in his first statement to police, instead mentioning a Maltese connection.

Babani also claimed that he had no idea that Gambin was going to bring drugs with him. He said that he had just seen Nabeil carrying two plastic bags from the boat and placing them in the car.

“So then I started driving.”

Answering a question from the jury, Babani said that Nabeil had only been expecting him “Gambin came along just to keep me company.”

Babani said he had been living on unemployment benefits since the old Golden Sands Hotel closed down. He had not been able to find a job since then, he said.

Nabeil gave Babani's number to a Maltese contact. “I don't know him. He called me up.”They had agreed to meet in front of Mosta church, he said.

The accused said he travels to Libya three to four times a year to visit his family.. A juror asked the accused if he had gone and met with Nabeil there. “I had gone there that year because of his brother's wedding. I didn't meet Nabeil.”

“The jury of those who did not run away”

Lawyer Franco Debono began his submissions to the jury. About ten years ago, a controlled delivery had been carried out on a police officer who had been accused of possession of drugs, by another police officer, said the lawyer. “That is how a controlled delivery is carried out, with no mysteries. The person who carried it out was brought to testify and was allowed to be cross-examined by the defence and so on.”

The trial has been shaped by the explosive revelation, made on the trial's opening day by former Assistant Commissioner of Police Neil Harrison, who said that the operation had, in fact, been a controlled delivery operation.

“There is a difference between a controlled delivery and entrapment, in which a crime is instigated,“ the lawyer pointed out, but asked the jurors to leave this issue aside for the time being.

“Our defence is that our client Godfrey Gambin did not have the knowledge, required at law, that what Nabeil was carrying into Malta had been drugs. When someone you don't know very well gets into your car and asks to for a lift. It later emerges that he had been carrying drugs in his briefcase. Are you guilty of drug trafficking?”

Assistant Commissioner Harrison's testimony had been mostly hearsay, posited the defence. The informer told him this and that, this is to provide the jury with a map of the arguments, said the lawyer.

“This is the jury of those who did not escape. The two on the speedboat fled. Nabeil, too, escaped.“

“A juror had asked about the third person on the boat, but they suddenly became two,” the lawyer said ,highlighting that the witnesses who testified after Harrison had said there had been two people on the boat.

“This guy wanted to release a sworn statement and was refused. But we are to believe Harrison's informant? How do I know that this is not a case of entrapment? How do I know that this boat did not drop off drugs in Gozo beforehand and then tried to benefit from the controlled delivery protection?”

The lawyer suggested that the police had let the speedboat escape because a deal had been struck. “The police do not have the authority to forgive crimes,” he said, adding that it was not in the law. “The rule of law means that every action must have a basis in law. “

“Nowhere, in six volumes of evidence has this controlled delivery been mentioned.” He explained the process of compilation of evidence to jurors. “When the compilation proceedings finish and before the indictment is filed there is another stage, that of pleas at which the defence can present arguments and have inadmissable evidence removed from the records of the case.”

The law doesn't want surprises in juries, Debono explained.

“All of the witnesses who testified here had already testified before the compiling magistrate. None of them mentioned the controlled delivery.” He gave the jury a definition of a tip off, saying that it was information which leads to an arrest. “A controlled delivery is another matter entirely,” Debono remarked.

"Is there any proof that the drugs had come from Libya? Was it , at any time, knowingly in Godfrey Gambin's possession?”

“Put yourself in Gambin's shoes. Would you be frightend? You are approached by an acquaintance who asks you to accompany them somewhere. Then the police come and the acquaintance runs away. “Would you not get everything that the acquaintance had in the car and hurl it out of the car?”

“He had said that all of a sudden the Libyan disappeared. Then a police witness says he tripped him up. So somebody saw him! Why did nobody else say so?”

“And if police wanted to carry out a controlled delivery, wouldn't they bring a camera? Whether they wanted to let someone get away, I leave up to you.”

On the charge of conspiracy to import drugs, he said that the best proof would be phone intercepts. But Harrison had said that he was not authorised to carry these out. “Are you saying you could not obtain ministerial clearance to intercept the calls on a drug importation operation?”

“I cannot say that the Security Services intercepts can be accessed by police,” said the lawyer, but “ I had him admit in a pending case that he would type those transcripts himself! I asked for their expungement.”

“How can you accuse someone of conspiring with three men, who are on the run, to smuggle drugs when the police come without a camera to film the raid?”

There was no conspiracy, Debono argued.

“Circumstances don't lie, but may deceive,” quoted the lawyer, saying that the majority of the evidence in this case was circumstantial.

“That the accused were there was a fact, but the interpretation of circumstantial evidence can only be accepted if that evidence is unequivocal.”

Madam Justice Edwina Grima is presiding. Lawyers Giannella Camilleri Busuttil and Nadia Attard from the Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting. Lawyers Alfred Abela, Franco Debono and Mario Mifsud are appearing for Gambin, while lawyer Malcolm Mifsud is representing Babani.