Alleged Maltese malware merchant didn't receive fair hearing, lawyers claim in constitutional case

Lawyers for a Żabbar man whose extradition to the United States was recently confirmed on appeal have now filed a constitutional case seeking to have that decision annulled, claiming that he suffered a breach of his right to a fair hearing.

This is the latest twist in the extradition of Daniel Joe Meli, 27, who had been arrested on February 7 by the police in coordination with the Office of the Attorney General and with the support of the FBI and US Justice Department. 

The Northern District of Georgia requested Meli’s extradited after he was indicted for computer access, damage and interception-related offences in December 2023. US prosecutors accuse Meli of offering malware products and services, amongst them the Pegasus remote access trojan (RAT), for sale to cybercriminals through online computer-hacking forums for more than a decade.

READ ALSO: Maltese hacker gave discount code to undercover FBI agent 

When Meli was arraigned on February 9, he consented to the extradition request, but had filed an appeal after changing lawyers. The appeal was not upheld.

In the constitutional application, filed by lawyers Franco Debono and Arthur Azzopardi, Meli emphasises his “long medical history and series of mental health problems”, which had led to several hospital admissions and stays at mental health facilities.

“The plaintiff submitted that in view of all this, the Court of Committal was obliged to investigate his mental state before accepting his voluntary declaration of consent to extradition, particularly that he had properly understood all that he was being accused of… and the potential prison sentences he was facing.”

In his appeal application, Meli denied that his admission "had been a totally voluntary one”, because, amongst other reasons, he hadn’t taken his medication and was therefore was not in a mental state to give the real and proper consent envisaged by the law.”

The man’s lawyers said that the prosecutor from the Office of the Attorney General had, in view of the mental health issue, declared that it was not taking the matter lightly and had itself requested documentary evidence of the alleged mental health problems, arguing that it was “precisely in [the AG’s] interest to protect the rights of the appellant and not the opposite, and so I can never accept certain allegations being made by the appellant at this stage, if I am not going to see concrete evidence with my own eyes”.

Unlike proceedings under other laws, those under the Extradition Act allowed for new evidence to be exhibited at appeal stage.

Meli’s lawyers say that in spite of this, the Court of Criminal Appeal had “washed its hands of its duties and the requests of the parties… and decided that it should base its eventual decision on what emerges from the acts of the proceedings because it is a Court of Appeal and not a Court of Committal.”