Man on bail over Imnieħru murders sentenced to jail for bail breach

George Galea, one of the men accused of murdering taxi driver Mario Camilleri and his son in 2013, has been jailed for a year after he was found to have breached one of his bail conditions

George Galea
George Galea

George Galea, one of the men accused of murdering taxi driver Mario Camilleri and his son in 2013, has been jailed for a year after he was found to have breached one of his bail conditions.

Galea, 51 from Paola, had been accused before Magistrate Gabriella Vella of breaching a curfew imposed as part of bail conditions handed to him by the Criminal Court, just a month prior. Besides also being accused of violating conditions of previous bail decrees dating back to 2014, Galea was charged with driving an unregistered motor vehicle during the night between 9 and 10 November 2022 and recidivism.

He had denied the charges.

The court had heard Inspector Lydon Zammit testify about the accused and a certain Keith Testa having been stopped by police in Zebbug at around 2:15am on 10 November, on suspicion of involvement in the burglary of a jewellery shop’s head office in Attard, which had taken place just an hour before.

The police had followed the car, their suspicions having been aroused by the fact that both its front and its rear number plates were absent. Police officers had also testified to finding a knife on the rear seat of the car.

As the case went on, a representative for the registrar of the Criminal Court had confirmed that Galea’s bail conditions were still in force and exhibited a number of documents to this effect.

The court dismissed a claim made by Galea’s defence lawyer George Anton Buttigieg, that the police officer’s testimony about having seen Galea behind the wheel had been contradicted in any way.

Magistrate Vella observed that the defence had placed great emphasis on the interpretation of a 2016 decree varying Galea’s bail conditions, but ruled that it was clear that he had been breaching his curfew.

“Whichever way you interpret the decree, that is, whether the accused should have been indoors at 2:15am only when he was at work…or whether he could return home at 2:15am every day, from the evidence exhibited it emerges that on 10 November 2022, the accused was found outdoors, in the road heading to Buqana in the Rabat direction at 2:20am,” ruled the court.

The court dismissed the defence’s arguments, bar those relating to recidivism, in view of the prosecution’s failure to exhibit copies of the previous judgments convicting Galea.

Noting that Galea had committed the breach just over a month after being granted bail, the court said that “this means that the accused is not at all prepared to obey the conditions imposed on him and that the same accused is not at all trustworthy, and therefore unable to provide the required guarantees to continue to benefit from the bail he had been granted.”

In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered the forfeiture of €5000 of Galea’s bail guarantees, which add up to some €35,000, and banned from driving for one year.