Marsaxlokk parish priest Luke Seguna has filed an urgent constitutional case claiming a breach of his right to a fair trial after his laptop went missing from the law courts’ exhibit room.

The priest, who is facing fraud charges, also claimed that other evidence seized by the police when they had started their investigations was never passed on to court-appointed experts and that the chain of custody of such important proof had been lost.

The case was filed after a court heard on Tuesday that the court-seized laptop – a MacBook Pro – could not be found in the law courts’ exhibit room. Court expert Keith Cutajar told Magistrate Rachel Montebello how he was nominated by the court to examine the contents of the laptop but when he asked the exhibits’ officer for the device, it could not be found.

The laptop was exhibited in court by the prosecution on June 19 last year. Since it is bulky it is not kept with the court documents but sent to the exhibits’ room after a registration number is allocated to it.

Fr Luke Seguna.

Cutajar said that, when he asked for the laptop and produced the relevant dates and number, he was told by the exhibit officer “we can’t find the laptop”.

The magistrate ordered that the exhibits’ officer be summoned to testify in the next sitting together with the police officer who exhibited it.

The court expert was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Fr Luke Seguna who is facing charges of fraud, misappropriation and money laundering, with prosecutors claiming he swindled some 150 of his parishioners out of around €500,000 over a 10-year-span.

He is denying the charges.

In an urgent application filed in the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, Seguna claimed that his right to a fair trial had been breached when the laptop went missing. He and other documentary evidence seized by the police were also never passed on to the inquiring magistrate, in blatant breach of the basic responsibility of the investigating officer to preserve the chain of custody of such evidence.

Seguna’s lawyers Jose Herrera, Matthew Xuereb and David Camilleri insisted that the administrative shortcomings began when the police failed to inform the inquiring magistrate so that documentary evidence is conserved by court-appointed experts.

The missing laptop and missing documents seized from the Marsaxlokk parish home by the police were important to prove his innocence. The laptop was analysed by the police, who are not court experts and there is no peace of mind about what the police had done with it, the lawyers claimed.

They said that all these shortcomings were failing to ensure that their client is afforded a fair trial and called on the court to decree on the matter.

Over a number of sittings since last August, numerous parishioners testified about the valuable work done by Fr Luke for the parish church and the people of Marsaxlokk, some saying that they missed his charitable acts.

A banner in support of Fr Luke Seguna in Marsaxlokk shortly after he was charged. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Witnesses said that they willingly donated funds under the “arbural” system, while others explained that they used to donate money to the priest to be used by him as he best deemed fit.

However, prosecutors claim that the priest held hundreds of thousands of euros in various bank accounts, together with a collection of five motorbikes and two cars, despite a relatively meagre income as a clergyman.

Several suspicious bank transactions had triggered police investigations in his regard.

Some €148,000 were allegedly traced to payment processing companies linked to a porn site, while police also tracked down several cheques totalling around €18,000 issued by a third party to the priest.