Man cleared of drugs charges after blood sample ruled inadmissable

A blood sample - taken from an unconscious victim of a drug overdose- has proved to be a godsend for the man charged with supplying it, after a court ruled that the fact that it had been taken without the subject’s consent rendered it inadmissible as evidence.

Charlo Cutajar had been charged with heroin trafficking and possession after an acquaintance of his, a certain Kristian Ellul was found unconscious in a Marsaskala street, suffering from an overdose.

Ellul had released a statement after being discharged from hospital, in which he alleged that he had gone to the home of the accused to buy heroin. He said the accused cooked up the drugs, filled the syringes and injected him, as he did not know how to. He started to feel dizzy as he left the accused’s flat and lost consciousness due to an overdose of the opiate.

The accused however, denied the allegations, saying that he had gone to  Bugibba and Mosta on the day of the overdose. He had not met Ellul that day, but later that night a car had pulled up outside his house, honked its horn and its occupant had asked if Ellul was there. Cutajar said he replied that Ellul had not been there for a long while. A search of his home had only found a burned spoon, which the accused claimed was a relic of his heroin abusing days which, he had said, had been over for some time by that point.

Magistrate Marseanne Farrugia observed that the prosecution’s case rested entirely on the testimony of Ellul, who was no stranger to drug use and whose testimony contradicted his initial statement to police.

The court did not believe Ellul when he said that he could not remember saying that they had bought the drugs together, moments after repeatedly saying so.

In addition, the report by court expert Dr. Mario Scerri had said that there were no fresh puncture marks on Ellul, which contradicts the witness’s claim that they had been injected by the accused. Dr. Scerri added that he had found evidence of opiates in the blood samples taken from Ellul, however as opiates are also found in pills containing codeine, there was a chance that Ellul had overdosed on these pills or that he had insufflated heroin rather than injected it. Moreover, he noted that as these samples had been taken whilst Ellul was unconscious, these findings were not admissible as evidence.

The court , having weighed up the evidence for and against, felt that the charges had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted Cutajar.