Lawyers appearing for two of four men facing a €20 million money laundering case claimed in court on Wednesday that their clients had been trapped by the police and customs officers who had been following the transfer of large sums of money for years without saying anything.
Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Franco Debono told Magistrate Gabriella Vella that they were insisting on entrapment by the authorities in the case against Hesham Zayed, Essam Mohamed Edernawi and their companies P.H.F. Ltd, U.G.T. Company Ltd, Express Route Company Ltd, HZ Medical Equipment and Health Services Company Ltd and H&H Investments Ltd.
The accused had been arrested in a police operation involving the Anti Money Laundering Squad, which had confiscated luxury cars and cash.
Another two Libyan nationals, Khaled Baely and Hdidan Tamer Ramadan Ali, were also arrested and charged over the same operation.
Customs officer Brian Saliba told the court that Customs let them take money out of the country because it knew that there was a police investigation. When pressed, he said he knew that the operation had been ongoing for about four years. He said the police and the Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit were constantly informed about the transactions initially through weekly reports. After the system had gone online, they were being updated immediately.
Debono insisted that the witness provides the exact date that the investigation had started. The witness said he could not recall the precise date when pressed by the defence.
“When was Customs told that it needed to act in this way with these people?” asked Debono.
Saliba said there had been an agreement between Customs and the relevant authorities, primarily the police. The prosecution objected to the provision of this information since it could impinge on national security. However, Magistrate Vella overruled this objection, saying a date could not raise such concerns.
Debono repeated the question and asked how long it had been going on. “Was it days? Months? Years?” But the witness insisted he could not recall but admitted that it had been in place “for years”.
Making submissions before the court ruled on whether it had seen enough prima facie evidence to place the accused under a bill of indictment, Azzopardi and Debono argued that while there may be a case against the individuals, the companies certainly had no case to answer for.
“Till now, we still don’t know what the predicate offence leading to the money laundering is,” the defence lawyers argued. The case was put off for a decree on the matter.
Lawyers Franco Debono, Arthur Azzopardi, Mario Buttigieg, Mario Mifsud and Christian Camilleri were defence counsel.