Liam Debono wants moral damages ahead of murder trial

The joyrider accused of the attempted murder of a police officer in a 2018 hit-and-run has demanded moral damages in a fair trial complaint.

Liam Debono, who is awaiting trial for the attempted murder of PC Simon Schembri whom he ran over in 2018, has filed a constitutional application arguing that his right to a fair trial has already been breached, demanding moral damages.

Debono, 20, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for breaching probation, and a driving ban whilst on bail for maiming a police officer with his car in a hit-and-run incident.

But he has now made two complaints about his right to a fair hearing in the case he filed against the State Advocate.

In the court application filed by lawyer Joe Brincat on Friday, Debono accused his former legal counsel of “not wanting to appear for him and refusing or dilly-dallying in granting him release so that he could engage someone else.” No other lawyer wanted to take over the brief to do so, as this would be a breach of the Code of Ethics.

Brincat later took on the case pro bono.

For a time after being dropped by his lawyer, Debono had been assisted by legal aid counsel, but this was limited to hearings before the Court of Magistrates and had no authorisation to file an appeal, he said.

This, Brincat stated, deprived Debono of the possibility of filing an appeal against his prison sentence.

The accused had also not received a fair trial in the case where he was accused of breaching probation argued the lawyer, as “this brought with it the presumption of guilt, rather than innocence.”

Debono is awaiting trial for the attempted murder of police constable Simon Schembri in 2018. Schembri was nearly killed when he was run over by the then underage driver, suffering a collapsed lung and fractures to his pelvis and ribs. Schembri’s right arm had to be amputated below the elbow as a result of the injuries sustained.

The officer also suffered severe friction burns from his cheek down to his abdomen from having been dragged for a considerable distance by the silver Mercedes that the motorist was allegedly driving.

The shocking case received wall to wall media coverage at the time.

Brincat argued that in Malta issues of fundamental human rights can be also raised in anticipation of a breach.

The lawyer submitted that his client was also the subject of a “media bombardment” and his case had been commented on extensively by both journalists and online readers. He pointed out that in Italy there is a procedure whereby if a certain level of public animosity towards an accused person is reached, that person would be tried in a different internal jurisdiction, but said that this was not possible in Malta.

It was important that potential jurors are not negatively influenced by what they have read and heard “with a certain insistence,” Brincat said, adding that this applied in particular to circumstances where before the jury begins, newspapers and other news outlets are made aware and so make an emphasis on the upcoming trial.

It was useless to have a learned judge keeping himself free from prejudice when jurors are being influenced against the accused, he said.

Brincat said that he himself was being careful not to mention in his application, details which the press would then pounce upon. “The right to freedom of expression is subject also to restrictions that are the rights of third parties and their protection. Amongst these protected rights is that of a fair trial. You cannot have a fair trial where the circumstances of the incident with which Liam Debono is being accused is being continuously hammered on about.”

For these reasons, he asked the court to declare a breach of the right to a fair trial and a breach to the right of appeal in criminal matters and provide a remedy, together with moral damages. The lawyer also asked the court to “preventively declare” that the accused would probably not receive a fair trial due to the prejudices built up against him and for the court to provide for this accordingly so as to prevent a further breach of his fundamental human rights.