Watch our summary of today’s proceedings by clicking here.
You can also read our full live blog by clicking here.
EN translation of the summary clip:
When we talk about human rights breaches, we need to remember that this kind of breach can only be committed by the government, because it is the authorities who are ultimately responsible for ensuring such breaches do not occur.
So, what happens when former government representatives accuse their own government of breaching their rights?
Well, what happens is what we saw today in court – a farce.
In the case of the Republic of Malta v disgraced former health minister Chris Fearne and his former colleagues and associates, we saw one defence lawyer after the other arguing how responsibility for the corrupt and fraudulent conduct which characterised the concession falls on everyone else except their own clients.
For context, in today’s hearing we heard final submissions from every individual who is accused of committing crimes in relation to this case. This means that the prima facie phase – the bit where the court needs to establish whether there is a case to answer for – will come to a close next week.
For this reason, today’s hearing was one of the longest we’ve seen so far. Over a total of eight hours, we heard thirteen submissions from the defence as well as one submission from the prosecution which referred to all of the accused in this case.
Obviously, it is impossible to summarise all of that in a short video like this one, so we will only give a brief summary of the key observations. As always, we encourage you to read our live blog to get all the details.
Throughout the last few weeks, we saw several attempts from the defence to erode the credibility of the court experts who were appointed to assist with the inquiry that led us to the case we are following today as well as the conclusions of the inquiring magistrate. The magistrate’s conclusions rely heavily on the conclusions drawn by these experts.
Today, we saw the biggest attack from the defence to date.
The defence’s attempts at eroding the credibility of these experts are based on a lack of irrefutable evidence which clearly shows that there was premeditated intent and a plan to commit the crimes the accused allegedly committed.
In reality, it is a known fact that with financial crimes like money laundering, there is always a lot of secrecy, hiding, and tactics which are used to cover up the real purpose of a transaction between one individual and another, including through the use of offshore companies like the ones linked with VGH.
In fact, in money laundering cases, it is the accused who must prove to the court that their source of wealth is legitimate.
When you take note of this, it is easy to notice that the defence’s arguments about the quality of evidence are made under the assumption that the prosecution somehow has the faculty to produce proof for every single accusation, when in reality it is very difficult to prove criminal intent with crimes that must, because of their very nature, remain concealed.
The complexity of this case means that magistrate Leonard Caruana has got his work cut out for him before making a decision today week.
Whatever happens, we will be present to provide you with the latest updates about this case.
See you next week.
