Court finds man innocent after learning of witness's psychosis

A court has found a Birkirkara man innocent of heroin trafficking after it was told that the prosecution's star witness had difficulty differentiating between reality and his imagination.

28-year-old Lineker David Micallef had been charged with trafficking the drug in July 2006, as well as being in possession of heroin in circumstances which denoted that it was not for his exclusive use, relapsing and re-offending during the term of a suspended sentence.

Inspector Pierre Grech, who was prosecuting this case, had told Magistrate Neville Camilleri that in July 2006, CID officers had stopped a person driving a motorcycle which they suspected to be stolen. The rider had told the officers that he had been sent by a certain Lineker to meet a third person, known only as Tony, who was to hand him four grammes of heroin, which he was to deliver back to Lineker.

Micallef was arrested and questioned, but told police that while he was a drug user, he was not a trafficker.

The motorcycle rider had testified that the accused had allowed him to borrow his motorcycle that day and had sent him to collect some drugs from Tony. He would be paid for this task in heroin, the witness said.

But doubts were raised about this version when the accused took to the witness stand, telling the court that he barely knew the man.

In view of the fact that the question of Micallef's innocence or guilt depended heavily on the motorcyclist's testimony, the court ordered that the man's psychiatrist testify. The court then heard the psychiatrist explain that the witness suffered from psychosis and paranoia. He would often imagine things to have happened when in fact, they had not, he said.

Further weakening the witness' credibility was the testimony of the witness' ex-girlfriend. In spite of her boyfriend testifiying that she would accompany him when he would buy drugs from Micallef, she had insisted that she had never seen the accused before.

The court cleared Micallef of the charges against him, as a result.

The man's name is being withheld in view of his condition.