Man cleared of drug charges 12 years later after only proof was an inadmissible statement

A court has acquitted a man from Attard of charges relating to cannabis cultivation and possession dating back to 2010, noting no incriminating evidence was found except his police statement, which was inadmissible.

Clint Zammit had been arrested in June 2010 and charged, together with another individual, who was not named in the judgment, with cultivating cannabis and possession of the illegal drugs within 100 metres of a place where youths habitually gathered.

The drugs had been discovered, together with a cannabis cultivation setup, at a grocery store in Hamrun, linked to Zammit and the other man, after police had raided the premises, acting on a tip-off.

But Zammit’s fingerprints were not found at the scene or on related objects; the forensic officers only found prints matching his co-accused. A subsequent search of his residence also found nothing incriminating.

In her judgement acquitting Zammit, handed down last Tuesday, Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras observed that the accused had, however, made incriminating declarations to the police during his interrogation.

Observing jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court and the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, the magistrate declared these statements to be inadmissible as evidence, in view of the fact that he was not assisted by a lawyer at the time.

Without this statement, there was nothing in the acts of the case tying Zammit to the cannabis plants found at the store, said the magistrate.

Declaring the charges in his regard to have not been proven, the court cleared Zammit of them.

Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri appeared for Zammit.