HSBC heist trial: Vince Muscat ‘il-Koħħu’ claims Debono plea deal breaches rights

Lawyers for Vincent Muscat have filed an urgent judicial protest this afternoon, a preliminary step to filing a Constitutional case, claiming the debacle surrounding Daren Debono’s plea deal and subsequent refusal to testify has caused his fundamental human rights to be breached.

Muscat had been due to undergo a trial by jury over the 2010 failed hold up at the HSBC headquarters, along with Daren Debono, it-Topo, but on the eve of the trial, the news broke that a plea bargain had been reached between the Attorney General and one of his co-accused.

In his judicial protest, filed on Sunday afternoon by lawyers Franco Debono and Roberto Montalto, Muscat said that he had found out about this development from the media. The next day, in the same courtroom where the jury was supposed to begin, the court was instead hearing the case against Debono, where the Attorney General withdrew the head of indictment for attempted homicide from Debono’s bill of indictment.

“In a sitting that lasted a few minutes, a sentence was handed down and with a certain haste, the Attorney General asked that the jury against [Muscat] begin immediately and that Debono be added to the list of witnesses.” The protest points out that Debono had just been sentenced moments before and had never testified in over ten years of criminal proceedings.

During that sitting, the requests had been strongly objected to by the defence, which argued that a miscarriage of justice was in the making. The jury was eventually postponed and the acts of the case sent to the Court of Magistrates for Debono’s testimony to be heard.

Muscat’s lawyers had argued that Debono had a reputation for lying and had also been investigated, charged, found guilty and sentenced for perjury. In the 2017 sentence handed down by Magistrate Ian Farrugia, Debono had also been interdicted for 20 years.

READ ALSO: Daren Debono charged over refusal to testify

“The protestor therefore always objected to the production of this witness because it could lead to a miscarriage of justice, the danger of which, whilst far more evident today, was already very evident at that stage,” reads the judicial protest.

Muscat’s lawyers had then filed an application to the Court of Magistrates on 17 February, in which it was argued that section 406 of the Criminal Code, which regulates the procedure for a witness to be heard after the Bill of Indictment has been issued breached the Constitutional right to a fair hearing.

The request for Daren Debono to testify had only been made in these proceedings, pointed out the lawyers, arguing that this amounted to discrimination and breached Muscat’s right to a fair hearing as it could create the impression in the mind of a witness that the AG wanted him to testify in some proceedings and not others, it was claimed. “The AG should not only be transparent in her quasi-judicial decisions but also explain her reasoning.”

The lawyers pointed out that the Court of Magistrates subsequently ruled that these concerns were valid, but had failed to order the acts to be sent to a court of Constitutional jurisdiction to decide the issue.

“As a consequence, despite Muscat’s objections, Debono was slated to testify. But from the witness stand he made the surreal declaration that he was not going to respect the nature and consequences of his oath, but would only testify on what he wanted to, a reason which in and of itself can affect his admissibility as a witness and in blatant breach of the law regarding oaths.”

Not only was all of this going to lead to a miscarriage of justice, said the lawyers, but was of “great prejudice” to Muscat’s rights.

They also criticised the fact that the court had also interrupted Debono’s testimony and ordered the uncompliant witness to be investigated and charged by the police. “This when his testimony had barely begun and no cross-examination had taken place. And this without prejudice to the veracity or otherwise of that which he had managed to testify, which could be contradicted by his own admission and therefore false.”

Debono’s demeanour on the witness stand was not that of a frightened person, said the lawyers, “but that of a person full of confidence, intending to ignore and ridicule the obligations of his oath in order to maliciously damage [Muscat], of a person intending to mock the oath upon which the entire justice system is based.”

Apart from the fact that the witness had already been convicted of perjury, apart from his declaration before his testimony that he was going to break the law about the nature and obligations of the oath, even the unsubstantiated excuse that he is trying to justify the breach of the law, if it is even remotely accepted by the courts, means not only the total collapse of the Rule of Law, but also the absolute reign of the law of the jungle.”

The lawyers warned that if the courts gave the mere impression that a person could avoid testifying with the excuse of being threatened, without evidence to back it up, this would be encouraging the person accused of avoiding this testimony by threatening witnesses. “This is clearly neither the word, nor the spirit of the law and the jurisprudence of the courts.”

They denounced the absurd situation whereby a witness can refuse to testify against one person claiming to have been threatened by that person, but can choose to testify against a person who had not threatened him.

The judicial protest reserved Muscat’s right to file further proceedings for the breach of his human rights as protected by the Criminal Code, the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.