Charged with conspiring in drug trafficking

Clive Butler, 26 of Marsascala has been spared from being transferred to Corradino Prisons, and was granted bail against a €50,000 personal guarantee by a Magistrate, after facing charges on international conspiracy to import and traffic heroin.

Butler - a well known offshore power boat driver - was arrested on Wednesday from his apartment in Marsascala in the wake of intensive international investigations which date back to 2011, when German Police had intercepted a car with three Lithuanian men, who were found to be carrying 2.2 kgs of high grade heroin.

The Lithuanians had allegedly revealed Butler's identity with German investigators as the person who was to oversee drug consignments get from one place to another.

Alerted by their German counterparts, the Maltese police discovered that two of the Lithuanians had travelled to Malta at least three times in four months.

The Lithuanians allegedly told German and Maltese investigators that Butler had overseen the importation of considerable consignments of drugs to Malta, a revelation which added to Butler's charges this morning.

His father, Carmelo Butler was arrested in 2007 at Gatwick Airport in London and taken to a West Essex jail, and was later extradited to Italy, where faced charges connected with the illegal trafficking of immigrants and the death of some of them.

He was wanted by Italian authorities following an Interpol operation connected to the trafficking of migrants by power boats from Malta to the Sicilian coast.

Carmelo Butler is currently serving a 22 year jail term.

Meanwhile, Clive Bartolo's mother and sister faced a trial by jury in 2008 for money laundering.

Carmen Butler, was given a two year jail sentence suspended for four years after being found guilty by six votes to three. Her daughter Stephanie was found not guilty.

The jurors reached their decision after more than five hours of deliberation, and asked for clemency as, they said, Carmen Butler was a victim of family circumstances.

Carmen and Stephanie Butler had been accused of laundering money between May 2000 and February 2004 when they deposited €56,619 (Lm24,300) through 19 transactions into an HSBC account.

Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo who presided over the trial said he had noted the jurors' call for clemency and the fact that since the father, Carmelo Butler was in prison in Italy, Carmen Butler on her own had to take care of her children, who had health problems.