Man who escaped court receives 25-month jail sentence and €25,000 fine for theft

A 26-year-old man who had given guards the slip and escaped from court while waiting to be charged with theft has been jailed for 25 months and fined €25,000.

Mġarr resident Giuseppe Condello Borg had managed to escape his guards while waiting to be called into the courtroom to face charges over a number of thefts and attempted thefts from Mgarr and Mosta during the months of October and November 2022.

When Condello Borg’s arraignment was about to begin, police inspector Godwin Scerri had gone outside the courtroom to call the defendant in, only to return and inform Magistrate Noel Bartolo that the officers guarding the man reported him to have vanished.

The magistrate replied that the arraignment could not take place in the absence of the person being accused. Upholding a request by Condello Borg’s defence lawyer Jacob Magri, the court ordered the charges to be withdrawn from the court registry, to be filed once more after the man was found and arraigned again.

Police found Condello Borg a few hours later and was arraigned again, this time facing an additional charge of escaping from lawful custody.

Finding the defendant guilty of charges relating to both the theft and his escape attempt, Magistrate Marseanne Farrugia sentenced the Italian to imprisonment for 25 months, together with a fine of €25,000. He was also banned from driving for an 18-month period starting from the date of his release from prison.

Lawyer Mario Mifsud assisted Condello Borg.