When you set out to destroy someone’s credibility without any facts at hand, you must expect to eventually be found out
Court confirms experts’ appointment
In the case of the Republic of Malta against disgraced former health minister Chris Fearne and his former colleagues and associates, magistrate Leonard Caruana decided that, in spite of the defence’s repeated attempts at sowing doubt about how court experts were appointed for this inquiry, this process was valid, thereby rejecting the defence’s objections.
So far, we had not seen any actual indication from the defence about what exactly was irregular about how the inquiring magistrate went about appointing over thirty forensic experts to assist with her investigation about the hospitals concession. They only referred to the fact that they are foreign experts, alleged that they are unfamiliar with Malta’s Criminal Code, and that no magistrate should ever use experts to determine whether a crime has been committed, submissions which the court considered and then refused.
Today, we heard from former police inspector Anthony Scerri, who had testified in the last hearing. To be clear, I am referring to the former police officer who had said he’d forgotten so many details about his involvement in the inquiring magistrate’s investigation that he was sent back to the police’s headquarters to review their file on this subject.
Incredulously, in spite of his claim that he consulted his personal diary, the former inspector still stated that he could not remember any details about the testimony of one of the accused, Deborah Ann Chappell, the same individual who was served with a €40 million freezing order.
Regarding freezing orders in general, defence lawyer Ezekiel Psaila elaborated on points which were already raised by his colleagues in other hearings, and he insisted that the defence is still at a disadvantage due to the fact that the prosecution has not explained the figures cited by the freezing orders.
From their end, the prosecution bases its argument on the conclusions of the inquiring magistrate and the expert reports which informed her decision, and they had indicated that they cannot risk prejudicing the rest of their case by going into the merits of all the evidence at such an early stage of the case
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