The defence team of former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo is not contesting the charge of revealing official secrets although it had its reservations on whether an appeals judgement qualifies as an official secret.

In his final submissions before Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo in Dr Arrigo's trial, defence lawyer Joe Giglio said the charge on trading in influence was also being contested by the defence because in order to have committed this crime, Dr Arrigo would have had to exert undue pressure on other judges, which, from evidence heard in court, did not happen.

In 2008, convincted drug trafficker Mario Camilleri, his son Pierre Camilleri and middleman Anthony Grech Sant were cleared of this charge of trading in influence.

"There is no doubt that Dr Arrigo's actions were ethically and professionally censurable, but the court is here to judge whether he had committed the crimes according to the charges brought against him and not to judge him on whether his actions were ethically correct," he said.

Earlier, Dr Giglio made submissions on the first charge: bribery. He insisted that the prosecution did not prove that Dr Arrigo had accepted the money to reduce Mr Mario Camilleri's jail term on appeal. On the other hand, the evidence heard in court was exactly the opposite: refusal after refusal.

Dr Giglio said all the evidence showed that Dr Arrigo never wanted the money and had always refused gifts whenever they were offered. He said his childhood friend Anthony Grech Sant and Joseph Zammit, Is-Sei, had offered him the money but he always refused.

Dr Giglio explained that a few days before the judgement was handed down, the first draft of the judgement had already been written.

The day after the judgement was handed down, Mr Grech Sant went to Dr Arrigo's office, they spoke about football and then Mr Grech Sant threw an envelope on his desk, telling him there was Lm5,000.

"He was flabbergasted and he froze. He was mentally confused. Had he expected them, he wouldn't have frozen or been flabbergasted. He was caught in this situation and he went to look for his employee Joe Galea to tell him what happened. Had he been bribed, would he have gone to tell someone about it?" Dr Giglio asked.

He insisted that the money got to Dr Arrigo after the judgement had been written and handed down. Dr Giglio said that in their submissions before the Appeal's Court in April 2002, the prosecution and the defence in Mario Camilleri's case said that they had agreed on a minimum of eight years and a maximum of 12 years. Therefore, he said, the reduced jail term was within the parameters of the law.