Marsden case: Malta slammed over pre-trial detention period
Raphael Vassallo Fair Trials International, a London-based human rights NGO specialising in miscarriages of justice, has slammed Malta’s pre-trial detention procedures after British national Steven Marsden spent three years in prison before his trial even began.
Marsden was finally acquitted on appeal last Monday, having been sentenced to 25 years for conspiracy to drug trafficking.
“Jailing someone for years before their trial even starts flies in the face of the presumption of innocence,” the NGO’s director Dr Jago Russell said yesterday. “Even if the person is ultimately acquitted, as in Steven’s case, it is too late to remedy the damage that has already been done. We urge Malta take the necessary steps to reduce the length of pre-trial detention.”
Steven Marsden, 50 from the UK, was arrested in July 2006 after a police tip-off led to the discovery of 50,000 capsules of a substance believed to be ecstasy hidden in his car, on arrival to Malta by sea.
Marsden was charged in court with illegally importing ecstasy to Malta, but during the proceedings, forensic expert Dr Mario Vella testified that the pills discovered in his Mitsubishi Pajero were not ecstasy at all, but mCCP: a different chemical which, while similar in effect to ecstasy, was not actually illegal at the time of importation.
The prosecution changed the bill of indictment from drug trafficking to conspiracy to trafficking; arguing that although the pills were not illegal, he himself was nonetheless under the impression that they were.
By means of a legal notice date May 2007 - i.e., after the arrest - mCCP was declared illegal.
In passing sentence, Judge Joseph Galea Debono noted that eight out of nine jurors had not believed Marsden’s claim that he had checked the legal status of mCCP before trying to import the drug into Malta, and in January this year handed down the maximum sentence possible.
By then Marsden had already spent three years in prison, after the Criminal Court at first denied him bail, and later set bail on a personal guarantee which Marsden lacked the financial means to meet.
Furthermore, the trial was delayed on account of a Constitutional Court case filed by the accused. Now, after three years of a legal wrangle described on the BBC (by his defence lawyer Dr Joseph brincat) as a “parody of justice”, the Court of Criminal Appeal this week overturned Galea Debono’s verdict, on the basis that the prosecution had failed to prove that any of his presumed co-conspirators had illegal drugs in mind, or that Marsden thought the pills were illegal.
It is understood that Masden, who left Malta for the UK yesterday afternoon, will be suing the State for compensation, and may also seek legal redress for violation of his human rights.
Speaking to the press outside the law courts on Monday, just after his client was acquitted, Brincat claimed that three years was ‘too long’ to spend behind bars awaiting justice.
While praising the Court of Appeal for the alacrity with which it handled the case, Brincat complained that unlike the system in the UK, the Maltese courts do not allow defendants to raise a plea that there is ‘no case to answer’.
“There is something amiss with our system,” Dr Brincat said, adding that had the above plea been raised, the case would have taken away from the jury, and the benefit of doubt would automatically be according by the sitting judge.
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