The Criminal Court is to decide whether Darren Debono qualifies as an admissible witness at the trial over the 2010 failed HSBC heist, a magistrate has ruled.

The decree, delivered by Magistrate Monica Vella on Thursday, means that Debono’s testimony has been postponed for a third time.

Lawyers representing the accused, Vincent Muscat, had contested Debono's eligibility in pleas made last week. They argued that Debono does not qualify to testify because he is currently under a 20-year interdiction after being found guilty of perjury in 2017.

The prosecution had requested that Debono be added to the witness list at the trial where he was originally co-accused after he registered an admission at the eleventh hour following a successful plea bargaining exercise with the Attorney General.

In exchange for his testimony against Muscat, Debono had a charge of attempted homicide dropped and was condemned to a 10-year jail term for his role in the botched hold-up.

The case had been sent to the magistrates court for Debono to testify and face cross-examination.

But when the time for that testimony arrived last week, Muscat’s lawyers contested his admissibility as well as the law itself which declared that a person interdicted could not testify “except in a court of law.”

Magistrate Vella in a decree cited jurisprudence and said that the court, tasked with handling the compilation of evidence, was limited to the task assigned by the Criminal Court presiding over the upcoming trial.

That meant that this court could not decide upon the pleas raised by Muscat’s lawyers.

Such issues were to be dealt with and settled before it could proceed with Debono’s testimony “if anything even in support of the accused’s right to a fair hearing,” said Magistrate Vella, thus sending the records back to the Criminal Court.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Roberto Montalto are defence counsel.

AG lawyers Giannella Busuttil and Francesco Refalo are assisting Inspector Joseph Mercieca in prosecuting.