A magistrates’ court upheld a request for full extraction of data from former MP doctor Silvio Grixti’s laptop but imposed safeguards upon the expert, including filming of the process “from start to finish.” 

Those safeguards were expressed in a decree delivered in open court on Tuesday, clearly addressing various concerns flagged by Grixti’s lawyers who objected to such extraction requested by the prosecution. 

“What about data of third parties, including patients and family, who have nothing whatsoever to do with this case?”argued lawyer Franco Debono, stressing that Maltese law on the issue of data handling “leaves much to be desired.” 

Tuesday’s hearing was taken up by submissions on this issue, with presiding Magistrate Rachel Montebello ultimately upholding the prosecution’s request but imposing measures upon the court expert to ensure transparency throughout the whole process. 

Grixti together with Roger Agius, Emmanuel Spagnol, Dustin Caruana and Luke Saliba are pleading not guilty to being involved in a large-scale disability benefit racket. 

The family doctor from Zejtun is alleged to have played a central role by providing applicants with false medical certificates which they presented to a medical board to secure the severe disability allowance. 

The other four co-accused are believed to have acted as agents or go-betweens, raking in payments from successful beneficiaries. 

The prosecution’s request for all data to be extracted from Grixti’s laptop meant that sensitive material concerning totally unrelated third parties would land in the expert’s hands, argued Debono. 

Maltese law appeared to have nothing similar to the UK Forensic Science Regulator Act and the defence also raised data protection issues.

Such matters were adequately dealt with in foreign jurisdictions and were most crucial especially when the data concerned “intimate personal information divulged in doctor-patient relations.” 

Previous testimonies indicated that after being seized from his Ghaxaq clinic, the laptop was placed inside an envelope. Later it somehow ended up in an evidence bag. 

The move from envelope to evidence bag had so far not been explained by previous prosecution witnesses.

AG lawyer Abigail Caruana Vella rebutted that the laptop data had already been extracted by cybercrime officers and was already in the records of the case. 

“Why was no objection raised then?”asked the lawyer, explaining further that other defence lawyers had hinted that no magisterial inquiry had been requested to investigate the social benefits racket.

After hearing submissions Magistrate Montebello upheld the request, saying that an expert would be nominated to carry out the full data extraction. 

The court’s function at this stage was to gather all data and since the data in question was material and relevant, the court had a duty to collect and preserve it. 

Since this extraction called for technical skills, an expert’s assistance was necessary. 

However, the prosecution was to indicate at a later stage which data was relevant to Grixti’s case so that a partial extraction would be exhibited in evidence. 

Meanwhile the court prohibited the parties and their lawyers from sharing any data already exhibited by cybercrime witnesses, unless the court provided otherwise. 

Moreover, the court expert was to indicate what measures were taken to ensure that the data was not contaminated in any way and was not accessed by any third party.

For this reason the expert was to record the extraction process “from start to finish” through digital means so as to address the defence’s concerns. 

The court finally decreed that there was sufficient prima facie evidence for all co-accused to face trial on indictment. 

The case continues.

AG lawyers Abigail Caruana Vella and Charmaine Abdilla are prosecuting, together with Inspectors Wayne R Borg, Andy Rotin and Shaun Friggieri. Lawyers Franco Debono and Arthur Azzopardi are counsel to Grixti.Lawyer Jason Azzopardi is counsel to Agius. Lawyers Michael Sciriha and Roberto Spiteri are counsel to Caruana and Spagnol.Lawyers Jose Herrera and Matthew Xuereb are counsel to Saliba.Lawyer Anita Giordmaina appeared parte civile for the Social Security department.