'Unemployed luxury car owner' pleads not guilty to drug charges

A 20-year-old man from St. Venera has been released on bail, after he was charged with possessing cocaine in circumstances which suggested trafficking.

Inspector Gabriel Micallef told magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit how Colin Ciangura had been arrested on Saturday trying to enter a Paceville entertainment establishment carrying eight bags of cocaine.

The accused was unemployed and had never worked a day in his life, said the inspector, yet he drove a Mercedes. The trafficking had been going on for some time, he added.

But defence lawyer Franco Debono interrupted the prosecutor, pointing out that he had not been accused of trafficking, only of aggravated possession.

“The accused is charged with aggravated possession of less than ten grams of cocaine and the accused has admitted that he has a drug problem.” 


Throughout the sitting, the accused was silent. He stood clenching and unclenching his fists, which were covered by a large tattoo of a skull, the knuckles for teeth.

Debono requested bail, adding that there were no witnesses with whom the accused could interfere or somehow tamper with evidence. But the Inspector Micallef objected, saying that the evidence was already tampered with, explaining that when the police had gone to search his apartment for evidence they had found the door to have already been forced open and only succeeded in recovering empty bags.

The defence argued, "we're are here to discuss bail not the merits of the case. I have not heard anything that could impinge on bail."

The court granted bail against a personal guarantee of €10,000 and ordered the  man to observe a curfew. The liquid assets of the accused were also frozen.