Three Gzira youngsters charged with string of armed robberies

Three young men charged with a series of five armed robberies in San Gwann, Msida and Gzira remanded in police custody 

Three young men from Gzira have been remanded in custody after being charged in connection with five armed robberies committed in the past three months.

Kane Grima, 20, Daniel Perrie Amarni Sciberras, 27, and Josef Galea, 19, appeared before magistrate Josette Demicoli this afternoon, charged with stealing €1000 from a grocery store in San Gwann during an armed robbery on 2 March. They were also charged with holding the storekeeper against her will and handling stolen goods.

Grima and Amarni Sciberras were separately charged with stealing €1943 and €600 worth of mobile top up cards from a convenience store in Msida.

The pair were also charged with conspiracy to carry out the heist, during which three men were held against their will.

Grima and Galea faced separate charges for stealing €900 from a Gzira convenience store on 6 January; stealing €2,868 during an armed hold-up from another Gzira convenience store on 11 February; the armed robbery of a San Gwann lotto booth on 19 February; and stealing numberplates from parked cars in San Gwann and Mriehel.

Grima alone was also charged with illegal possession of a pistol.

The three men denied all charges against them.

Inspector Jonathan Ransley explained how the trio had been arrested by a convenience store after their latest crime. Police caught them in the act of disposing the items used in their armed robberies, upon noticing that they were being followed by a police car. 

Police recovered a pistol with five live rounds, and weighing scales with traces of a substance suspected to be cocaine that had been tossed by the side of the road.

“They did not commit this robbery empty handed,” the inspector added.

Lawyer Franco Debono, appearing for Grima, requested bail and described the accused as “children.” He urged the police to bring out all their evidence as quickly as possible, as “cultures that have developed in court over time are not the law”.

He argued that bail shouldn’t be denied for the trio, given that the police were yet to summon any witnesses to testify.

“It’s ironic and unacceptable that witnesses are immediately brought to testify against foreign victims [sic] to allow them to travel back home on time, but Maltese victims are held in prison until witnesses have testified.”

He said that Grima’s criminal record was “relatively clean”, and argued that the European Courts had consistently ruled that the gravity of an alleged offence is no obstacle to bail.

“The reality of Malta’s prison is that the young men will only progressively deteriorate with the time spent there.”

He argued that it was illogical to withhold bail so as to protect witnesses, because “witnesses would not have been able to recognize them anyway had the robbery been carried out by masked men”.

Lawyer Kathleen Grima, appearing for Galea, said that her 19-year old client  “looked around 15 years old” and highlighted the fact that neither the gun nor the substance and bags had been found in his possession.

“The crimes took place in January, so you cannot say that they [the three men] would now try to interfere with the administration of justice,” she said. “What were the police doing in those two months? If they had fingerprints, CCTV records and photos then these would not be affected by granting the accused bail.”

She reiterated that the European Court had established that bail should be the rule and not the exception. “It goes hand in hand with the presumption of innocence.”

“Prison is not always the best place for a person. If innocent, there is more chance that he would succumb to vices in those miserable conditions,” she suggested a supervision order.

Lawyer Andrew Sciberras, appearing for Perry, highlighted his client's spotless criminal record, adding that his client suffered from severe juvenile ideopathic arthritis and was in possession of a disability pension from the UK. He requested that the man be held at the forensic ward at Mount Carmel Hospital in the case that bail was denied.

And denied it was, with Magistrate Demicoli ordering that the men be remanded in custody due to the serious nature of the alleged offence.

Addressing a point raised by Debono, however, the magistrate ordered that the prosecution summon all 11 of its witnesses to testify in the next sitting, so as to avoid prolonging the time spent in preventive custody.

Inspectors Carlos Cordina and Jonathan Ransley prosecuted.