A magistrate has ordered the immediate release of a man charged with human trafficking and money laundering following a blunder by the prosecution.  

Andre D’Amato, 37, from Mosta, an ICT professional and company director, was also charged with computer misuse, forgery of official documents, using forged documents, fraud and with making false declarations.

He is pleading not guilty to the charges brought against him for crimes allegedly committed between 2018 and earlier this month.

He was originally arraigned under arrest last week, was denied bail and remanded in custody.

But when the case was due to be heard on Wednesday, the prosecution, led by Attorney General lawyers Ramon Bonett Sladden Andreas Vella and police inspector Karl Roberts, asked for a correction in the charge sheet because they wanted to add the money laundering charge as well as the charges related to fraud and falsification of documents.

However, rather than correcting the charge sheet, the prosecution filed a brand new charge sheet bearing Wednesday’s date as if the arraignment was going to start afresh.

Defence lawyers Franco Debono, Alfred Abela and Karl Cordina vociferously objected to their client’s continued arrest.

Debono told Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech that the fresh charges meant that the case was starting afresh and that the previous procedure, which saw their client remain under arrest in preventive custody for a week, was now taken over by this new event. The defence therefore asked the court to declare that the continued arrest was illegal.

The prosecution insisted that it was not a fresh case but they had simply added charges to the charge sheet, which was permissible.

However, Magistrate Frendo Dimech noted that the prosecution had not added charges, as it was claiming, but had filed a fresh charge sheet bearing Wednesday’s date as if it were a fresh arraignment.

She observed that D’Amato was arrested on the strength of an arrest warrant issued by the duty magistrate last week. He was remanded in custody following the arraignment on the strength of the same arrest warrant.

She ruled that since this was a fresh procedure, his continued arrest was therefore illegal and she ordered his immediate release from arrest.

The case will now be sent to the court registrar for the case to be assigned to the magistrates presiding over money laundering cases.