A suspected drug trafficker extradited to Malta after he failed to return when granted court permission to travel to Italy has been spared prosecution for breach of bail since that offence was not listed by the Italian court upholding the extradition.
Gennaro Russo, a 32-year-old café owner from Naples, was arrested in December 2021 after being stopped by police while driving through Naxxar.
He was found in possession of cocaine and cannabis.
A further search at his St Paul’s Bay residence and two garages in Msida yielded some 1.5kg of cocaine and 15kg of cannabis worth over €450,000.
Russo was charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.
While proceedings continued, he was granted bail in February 2022 under several stringent conditions including twice-daily signing of the bail book and a prohibition not to travel abroad.
In January 2024, Russo was granted permission by the court to travel to Italy for a fortnight, returning to Malta on February 14.
But he failed to return.
On June 6, Maltese authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant, seeking the accused’s surrender by the Italian authorities.
That EAW listed nine charges of drug trafficking and money laundering as well as an additional charge for skipping bail.
A Court of Appeal in Naples upheld the extradition request in July.
The decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation in August.
Russo was surrendered and sent back to Malta on August 27.
The following day he was charged before a Magistrates’ Court over the alleged breach of bail.
His lawyer Mathew Xuereb raised a preliminary plea based upon the rule of speciality.
That rule, as defined under the 2002 Council Framework Directive on EAWs and also introduced under Maltese law, stated that a person may not be prosecuted for an offence other than that for which he was surrendered.
When deciding upon this preliminary plea the court, presided over by magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia, observed that for some reason, the Italian court did not cite the breach of bail among the offences for which Russo was to be surrendered.
That might have been through some oversight, observed the Magistrate.
But it was clear that the accused was surrendered only on the basis of drug trafficking and money laundering.
For this reason, the defence’s plea was “justified.”
Since Russo was not extradited for breach of bail, the prosecution could not press separate charges against him for that alleged offence.
The prosecution ought to have filed a request before the other magistrate presiding over the drug trafficking case to have his bail revoked.
That would have adequately addressed the prosecution’s concerns since breach of bail is not considered to be a criminal offence under Italian law.
This could create a situation of abuse where persons facing criminal action might abscond to Italy, safe in the knowledge that they would not face repercussions for skipping bail, observed the court.
However, in Russo’s case, since the prosecution filed separate proceedings for breach of bail, the court’s hands were tied.
In terms of the rule of speciality, this court lacked the competence to hear the case and the ‘solution’ suggested by the prosecution, namely to revoke the accused’s bail and order his re-arrest without meting out further punishment, was “legally impossible”, said the court.
That could only be done by the court presiding over the accused’s drug trafficking case.