Court of Magistrates to hear drug trafficking case after expert's report not received

A man allegedly found in possession of 470 ecstasy pills, 97 grammes of cocaine and 87 grammes of mephedrone is to face a magistrate and not a jury, after the Criminal Court ruled that it had not received the results of tests positively identifying the substances or the amounts in which they were found.

Ryan Callus had been arrested after a number of searches in areas he frequented. One search, conducted in a farm and a nearby field, had yielded a bag with a white substance suspected to be cocaine and a metal can with 40 ecstasy pills in it. The police also found a metal can containing 430 ecstasy and a set of digital weighing scales beside it.

Callus denied intending to traffic the drugs, claiming that he had bought them in bulk because he had been offered at a good price. 

Callus would have faced a potential maximum punishment of life imprisonment had he been tried before the Criminal Court, but will now be tried before the court of Magistrates, which can only award punishments of imprisonment ranging between six months and four years. 

The law affords the Attorney General ‘unfettered discretion' when it comes to assigning certain cases to be heard by either the lower or upper courts: a choice which can mean the difference between a minimum sentence of just six months and four years, while maximum penalties vary from 10 years to life.

In 2014, justice minister Owen Bonnici had introduced amendments to the Criminal Code through which the Attorney General was provided with guidelines as to how to exercise his discretion. 

Callus’ defence lawyers Franco Debono, Arthur Azzopardi and Amadeo Cachia submitted to the court that the amount of drugs with which the accused had been caught was closer to the competence of the court of magistrates, as set out in the new drug sentencing guidelines.

In the absence of an expert’s report, the defence had argued that the court of criminal inquiry had inexplicably felt that the testimony of the prosecuting police inspector and a statement by the accused constituted sufficient prima facie evidence to place Callus under a bill of indictment. 

The court also noted that the amounts recovered were within the parameters of the court of magistrates, as per the new guidelines set out in the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

After taking into account the number of witnesses, the absence of an expert’s report and the sentencing guidelines, judge Giovanni Grixti upheld the defence’s request and ordered the case be decided by the Court of Magistrates as a Court of Criminal Judicature.