Romeo Bone double jeopardy claim dismissed in trafficking case

A judge has dismissed a constitutional case filed by alleged hitman Romeo Bone, in which he claimed that his right not to be tried twice for the same offence had been breached when the Attorney indicted him for smuggling cocaine and marijuana into Malta from Sicily.

Bone, who lost both legs in a 2017 car bomb explosion thought to be linked to a rival criminal gang, had been cleared of complicity in the smuggling of drugs from Holland by a Sicilian court in 2009. He argued that despite this decision, the Maltese Attorney General had persisted in issuing a bill of indictment against him that same year, in which Bone was indicted for conspiracy to traffic the same consignment of drugs.

Amongst the preliminary pleas raised by Bone was that he could not be tried twice for the same offence.

In a decision handed down in 2016, the Criminal Court dismissed Bone’s preliminary pleas. A subsequent appeal he had filed against this decision was also not upheld.

Bone then filed a constitutional case, claiming that his fundamental human right to a fair hearing had been breached by the ongoing criminal proceedings in Malta.

The Attorney General argued that the Maltese courts of criminal jurisdiction had already rejected Bone’s double jeopardy claim, and that he could not use constitutional proceedings as a form of appeal in the hope of revoking previous decisions.

Although the case decided by the Tribunale di Catania dealt with “many identical crimes”, the case in Malta involved different facts that had not formed part of the Sicilian case, argued the prosecutor. In fact, Bone was even being charged with different offences, the AG submitted. Whereas in Catania he had been accused of complicity in drug trafficking, the Maltese authorities were indicting him for conspiracy. This had also been pointed out by the Criminal Court in its 2016 decision to dismiss Bone’s claim, argued the AG.

In her judgment on the case, Madame Justice Anna Felice made several observations. She noted that it was being alleged that the drug deal had taken place entirely in Malta and that other persons involved in it are already serving sentences in Corradino Prison. The drugs had been bought in Holland and taken to Italy, from where it was meant to be transported to Malta. Bone had been involved in the acquisition and transport of the drugs, said the judge.

A first attempt to acquire the drugs had fallen through due to insufficient funds, noted the court, and on the second attempt Bone, together with others, had purchased them and smuggled them into Italy. The drugs had been hidden in Catania after the traffickers suspected that they were being followed by the Italian authorities.

Around a month later, Fabio Psaila and Raymond Borg had travelled to Catania to pick up the drug stash and deliver it to Malta. Unbeknownst to them, the Italian police had been tipped off by their Maltese counterparts and had managed to trace the hidden drugs, which they then replaced with a dummy package.

Borg and Psaila were arrested by the Italian police when they attempted to retrieve the drugs from their hiding place.

The Italian authorities had requested Bone’s extradition in 2002 to face charges relating to the trafficking operation, but this extradition had never taken place because of the ongoing proceedings in Malta. The Tribunale di Catania had initiated proceedings in his absence, but had to declare him not guilty in February 2009 due to insufficient evidence.

In October 2009, the Maltese authorities issued Bone’s bill of indictment, accusing him of conspiracy to import and traffic drugs in Malta and recidivism.

The judge observed, however, that the proceedings in Catania had dealt with Bone’s complicity with Raymond Borg and Fabio Psaila to import the 4kg of cocaine and 826g of marijuana from Holland.

Madame Justice Felice pointed out that the scope of constitutional proceedings was limited to establishing whether a breach of fundamental rights had taken place as a result of court proceedings, and not to act as a court of revision or appeal.

With Bone’s plea already dealt with twice, first by the Criminal Court and then by the Court of Criminal Appeal, the court highlighted the fact that the Maltese proceedings dealt with other facts and two separate trips to Holland to import the drugs.

The appellate court had concluded that Bone’s indictment in Malta was a separate and distinct action to the proceedings in Italy and “covered facts and circumstances which certainly could not be tied to the material act alone where allegedly the importation of drugs into Italy took place.”

That judgment conceded that the line of demarcation was subtle, but disagreed with the defence’s argument that the facts were identical as the illegal activity being examined by it was wider than that dealt with in Italy.

After examining previous judgments laid down by the Maltese courts in similar cases, the court said it found Bone’s case to be “another attempt by the applicant to obtain the cancellation of the Bill of Indictment issued against him and this when the courts of criminal jurisdiction had already dealt with his complaint…”

The judge emphasised that Bone was indicted over a conspiracy that happened in Malta aimed at importing drugs to Malta. “It follows therefore that the events which make up the merits of the criminal proceedings against the applicant took place in Malta. In Italy he had been tried for complicity with third parties in the importation of an amount of drugs from Holland into Italy. Whilst a number of facts are the same, those upon which the indictment is based are not the same and therefore the crimes which the applicant is accused of are different.”

In fact, said the court, the proceedings in Catania had made reference to the day of the 30 March 2002 – the day Fabio Psaila and Raymond Borg went to Sicily to collect the drugs, whilst the Bill of Indictment in Malta specified that he had caught a flight to Amsterdam in February 2002 with the intention of buying and eventually transporting the drugs to Malta.

The judge dismissed the case, ordering all costs to be borne by Romeo Bone.