A man who walked free after 20 years in court over theft, fraud and circulation of fake currency has sued the state for compensation after it emerged that the police’s only witness was the prosecuting officer.

Nazzareno Dalli is calling on the state to pay him damages after dragged out proceedings forced him to put his life on hold over a case that took almost two decades to be concluded.

Through his lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri, Dalli claimed that the duration of the court case was in breach of his right to be tried within a reasonable time. The case was put off 29 times at the request of the prosecution. He was not responsible for any of the delay as he had only failed to attend one sitting because he was sick and provided a medical certificate.

The case in the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction was filed against the police commissioner, the attorney general and the state advocate.

Dalli recounted in his application that he had first been charged in September 2004 after the police traced him as one of the suspects allegedly involved in a series of thefts from fuel service stations in the south.

His case was initially led by Ian Abdilla who, at the time, was a police inspector and then promoted to lead the police economic crimes unit before being removed from that post and then suspended.

The case against Dalli began when the economic crimes unit received reports about fake currency being used at automated machines at fuel stations. Three suspects were identified, including Dalli who was allegedly captured on stills from security camera footage from the Paul and Rocco facility in Marsa.

A third party had also lodged a criminal complaint after allegedly being paid in false currency by Dalli, Abdilla had testified.

The suspect was charged with forging banknotes, possession and use of Maltese counterfeit money, fraud, theft of diesel and petrol, as well as handling stolen goods.

He pleaded his innocence and, in February 2006, the prosecution declared that they had only one other witness to produce but the person did not wish to testify since he too was undergoing criminal proceedings.

By September 2007, the situation remained unchanged and the stalemate continued up to 2012 when the court declared that it was granting one last deferment for the prosecution to wrap up its evidence. The status quo persisted until the court finally put off the case indefinitely (sine die) following the umpteenth fruitless sitting in November 2013.

In 2019, the case was assigned to a new magistrate and a new police officer took over the prosecution, filing an application for the case to be put back on the court’s list for hearing. However, the sole pending witness had since passed away.

Earlier this year, the defence requested the court to declare the statement released by the accused in 2004 without any legal assistance to be inadmissible in evidence against him.

Magistrate Victor George Axiak followed a line of established caselaw, which declared inadmissible statements made by a suspect without legal assistance prior to February 2010, when Maltese law did not yet grant such right to the accused in the pre-arraignment stage.

When delivering judgment, the magistrate observed that this was “another classic example of unnecessarily dragged-out proceedings” when the prosecution had only produced one witness in almost 20 years, namely the prosecutor himself.