Court throws out Alfie Rizzo murderer's illegal arrest claim

A court has thrown out an allegation of illegal arrest filed by a prison inmate who is serving a 25-year sentence for the 1998 murder of hairstylist Alfie Rizzo.

Rizzo died after being stabbed 17 times by Aimen Said Giali El Baden, from Libya, at his hair salon in Sliema on 4 February 1998. El Baden had been convicted of murder by a jury but spared a life sentence on account of the fact that he had been 17 at the time of the killing.

In his application to the Court of Magistrates, Aimen Said Giali El Baden from Libya had alleged that he ought to have been released from prison on 5 November this year.

Lawyer Mario Mifsud, appearing on behalf of the Correctional Services Agency, had argued that El Baden’s latest application was an exact copy of another application that he had filed on 10 November, which had been rejected by Magistrate Josette Demicoli.

The convict, whose prison term comes to an end in August, had escaped from preventive custody and had subsequently been rearrested.  In his previous application, El Baden asked the court to order that the time he had spent under arrest be deducted from his sentence.

Magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo observed that the court document was an identical, word-for-word copy of that which he had previously filed without success before Magistrate Demicoli. “There is absolutely no change in it, not in the law the applicant is quoting and neither in the merits of it,” noted the magistrate.

“It is not the function of this court to revise decisions given by the same court on the same merits, facts and legal provisions. Here the court completely agrees with that declared by the Correctional Services Agency in that this application was solely intended to waste the court’s time and allow the applicant to try his luck through forum shopping, in the hope of getting a favourable decision before a different magistrate,” ruled the court, declaring the man’s application as vexatious and denying it in its entirety.