A lawyer for one of the men accused of supplying the bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia argued on Friday there was no reason to deny bail to the man other than the fact that the victim “is who she is”.
The lawyer made his argument following the twelfth request for bail for Jamie Vella, charged with complicity in two murders: the car bomb assassination of Caruana Galizia in 2017 and the drive-by shooting of lawyer Carmel Chircop in 2015.
Vella is awaiting trial by jury alongside George Degiorgio as well as Adrian and Robert Agius.
All are pleading not guilty to various charges in relation to the two crimes.
When Vella’s latest bail application came up for hearing on Friday, his lawyer Ishmael Psaila highlighted the fact that the accused has been in preventive custody for three years and eight months.
Before his arraignment, Vella had been on police bail. Four years lapsed between the day when he was first targeted by criminal investigations and the date when he was charged in court.
On Friday, Assistant Commissioner Keith Arnaud, summoned by the defence, testified that through all those years, Vella presented no problems to be tracked down and always abided by police bail conditions.
Even when travelling abroad, he caused the police no headache.
A prison official confirmed that Vella had no pending reports in prison and two previous ones - relating to disrespect for regulations - had been dealt with.
All urine samples since Vella’s admission to prison tested clear of drugs.
Other people accused of homicide generally got bail within a few months or a year or so, argued Vella’s lawyer.
Police chief Angelo Gafa’ had publicly declared two years ago that all those suspected of involvement in Caruana Galizia’s murder had been brought to justice. Yet now, on the eve of the trial, the prosecution was arguing that the magisterial inquiry was still ongoing, he said.
And the "only argument the [Attorney General] can put forward" when objecting to bail is the issue of public disorder, he added.
Public outcry in this country was common whenever a crime presented political overtones, the lawyer noted, adding that when considering bail, the life of every person should not be attributed more value than that of others.
In this case, it was not that “Vella was not eligible for bail, but unfortunately one of the victims is who she is”, argued Psaila.
AG lawyer Godwin Cini countered that the accusations were serious “and I don’t say this lightly here”.
Vella was facing charges over his alleged involvement in both murders and also in organised crime. The potential sentence was life imprisonment and that was a factor to be considered when weighing the fear that the accused might abscond.
Longer terms of detention in such circumstances may be reasonable, argued the prosecutor, citing ECHR caselaw while also noting that the magisterial inquiry was ongoing.
“This was a case that shook Malta and reverberated worldwide,” stressed Cini, adding that circumstances had not changed since the court last rejected Vella’s previous bail request.
“Where’s the presumption of innocence? Does it apply to this case?” hit back the defence, insisting that “at this stage, it was pressing for Jamie Vella to get bail”.
The court is to decree on the bail request in chambers.