Criminal action to be taken against 'reluctant' witness

A magistrate yesterday ordered that criminal action be taken against a "reluctant" witness as she had a reasonable suspicion he had been lying under oath.

Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima gave the ruling after cautioning 17-year-old Matthew Pace about the consequences of perjury several times yesterday and again on Tuesday, when he first took the witness stand.

Mr Pace insisted that the police had forced him to release a statement saying that his neighbour, Ronnie Azzopardi, had commissioned him to kill Mary Rose Cassar when Mr Azzopardi had never done so.

When Mr Pace first took the witness stand on Tuesday, in the compilation of evidence against Mr Azzopardi, he insisted that the contents of the police statement, which was then confirmed before the magistrate conducting the inquiry, had been made up by the police.

All he did was confirm its contents because Police Inspector Christopher Pullicino had told him he would not be released otherwise, the witness claimed.

After cautioning him several times on Tuesday, the magistrate ordered that Mr Borg be kept under the custody of the courts until yesterday afternoon when he was given another chance to testify.

Testifying yesterday, Mr Pace insisted he was now telling the truth and that Mr Azzopardi had never asked him to kill anyone.

The evidence given before Magistrate Lawrence Quintano during the inquiry was then read out to him.

He had told the inquiring magistrate that some time between September 28 and 29 Mr Azzopardi approached him and offered to pay him Lm500 to kill a woman, with whom Mr Azzopardi had a pending court case.

Mr Azzopardi told Mr Pace to sleep with the woman on one occasion, then sleep with her a second time which would be the time when he would kill her by suffocating or shooting her. Mr Azzopardi was to provide the weapon.

According to the evidence read out, Mr Pace told Mr Azzopardi he was not interested and Mr Azzopardi gave him time to think about it. Mr Pace then opened up with his social worker and eventually exempted him from professional secrecy so that the social worker could testify in court.

In his evidence yesterday, Mr Pace denied all that and repeated that that story had been fabricated by the police. He added he never exempted his social worker who he had not been seeing for about seven months.

The case continues tomorrow.