Man acquitted of drugs charge because substance not tested

A court has acquitted a man charged with heroin possession, after it noted that the brown, powdery substance which he had been found in possession of had not been tested for opiates.

42-year-old Emanuel Mizzi had been found by police, acting on an anonymous tip-off, lying on the ground outside a bank in Zabbar in September 2009. A carton of cigarettes lying next to the man was found to contain a small plastic sachet holding a brown powder.

Mizzi, who had a history of drug abuse, was taken to the Zabbar police station where he asked a policewoman, who was cataloguing the belongings found on his person as evidence, into letting him have a closer look at the bag. At the moment the sergeant picked up the sachet, he snatched it from her grasp and swallowed it. He was taken to hospital and placed under observation.

The accused began to suffer the symptoms of a heroin overdose, so the doctors administered the antidote Naloxdone, after which his condition improved. The accused denied that it was heroin which he had consumed and had claimed the substance was a medicine, the name of which he could not recall.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras noted that while the circumstances surrounding the case pointed towards it being heroin, there was no proof, forensic or otherwise that it definitely was the drug. None of the doctors who treated the accused had testified and neither had any tests been carried out on the substance in the packet.

With this in mind, the court felt that the charges had not been proven to the level required by law and acquitted Mizzi.

Lawyer Mark Busuttil defended the accused.