Court slams company director

Daniel Farrugia, the company director who on Tuesday earned himself the wrath of Magistrate Carol Peralta for not turning up in court, today got a severe admonition over allegations that he failed to pay his employees their salaries.

On Tuesday, an arrest and accompaniment warrant was issued against Farrugia after he did not attend the sitting. In today's sitting, defence lawyer Joseph Arrigo informed the court that the accused apologised for missing court and explained that this was due to a misunderstanding between Farrugia and himself.

Magistrate Peralta threw out the lawyer's excuse of misunderstanding, arguing that all claimants had attended court yet after not being paid their wages, their time is now being wasted when the accused fails to attend court. "I have taken a particular approach in this case as I believe that your former employees have a better chance of getting their wages back, however I will not tolerate you ignoring court orders. You are not doing anyone any favours, you have to pay what you owe these employees" he told the accused.

Farrugia replied that he always paid his dues and will pay his former employees all outstanding wages.

One of the former employees demanded clarification as to why they wages were not settled when Farrugia cashed €250,000 he earned from hotel shares. But the accused reply he could not access the money due to a seizure order which was issued against him.

Asked if they want to proceed with the criminal case against their former boss, two of the claimants replied in the affirmative. However the case had to be postponed to a future date due to a disagreement over the amounts owed to the workers.