Sant Cassia murder: Judges confirm decision to remove unassisted statements released by accused

The Court of Criminal Appeal in its superior jurisdiction has confirmed a decision to remove incriminating statements given to the police by the man accused of the murder of Baron Francis Sant Cassia.

Sant Cassia was shot dead at point-blank range on the grounds of his house, Castello Zammitello, in Mġarr in 1988.

Police had received information pointing to Camilleri as the gunman while investigating another case in 2004. Camilleri, from Mosta, was alleged to have been paid a sum of money to carry out the assassination. He was 33-years-old at the time of the murder.

He was subsequently charged in 2006 with Baron Sant Cassia’s murder and is still awaiting trial.

His lawyers, Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta, had requested the expunging of statements Camilleri had released during his interrogation, arguing that he suffered from an intellectual disability and had not been assisted by a lawyer at the time.

The Criminal Court had upheld the request in August 2021. An appeal to that judgment was filed by the Attorney General.

In their decision on the matter, delivered this morning, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, together with judges Edwina Grima and Giovanni Grixti, examined the law regulating the interrogation of persons suffering from intellectual disabilities, which states that such interrogations have to be conducted in the presence of a parent, tutor or social worker, who must also choose whether to sign the resulting statement.

They noted that the accused, who suffers from an intellectual disability that causes him difficulty in understanding and expressing himself and is illiterate, was alone during several interrogations, which took place in 2004. During interrogation, the man had renounced his right to silence in circumstances where he had no form of defence, said the court, stating that this could lead to him suffering irremediable prejudice.

The judges observed that the interrogating officer had only informed Camilleri of his right to remain silent and cautioned that anything he said could be used against him in court after he had released several statements. Inspector Chris Pullicino had testified that this was because the man was not initially a suspect and had also pointed police in the direction of another person, who was later found to have no connection to the murder.

It was only after Inspector Pullicino had challenged Camilleri’s initial version of events that the accused had claimed to have shot the Baron, on the instructions of a certain Angelo Muscat from Mgarr, who he said had promised him a sum of money in return for committing the murder.

But the court also observed that a psychiatrist appointed to examine the accused reported that Camilleri had an IQ of around 50 and a mental age of between nine and 12 years old.

The judges ruled that the accused had been cautioned too late in his interrogation, by which time he had released contradictory statements and attracted suspicion upon himself. The court said it was “perplexed” as to why only the last statement released by the accused had been recorded on tape when the first two of his statements were determining factors in his being charged.

Although he would be assisted by a lawyer during his trial by jury and would be able to present his defence, the court said that this in no way prevented the danger of imbalance between his rights and those of society. An explanation could not fix the shortcomings in taking Camilleri’s statements to the jury by the trial judge, said the court.

For this reason, the judges ordered the statements be expunged from the evidence, together with any verbal declaration the accused might have made without the assistance of his lawyer. The acts of the case were sent back to Criminal Court for the case against him to continue.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta are defence counsel to Camilleri.