An arms dealer and his customer have been cleared of selling ammunition to Libya back in 2013, in breach of UN sanctions.

The pair were acquitted after the court concluded the more serious charges had been based on "speculations".

Michael Azzopardi and Feraj Issa Ali Yaacob had been charged with breaching weapons laws and conspiring to sell live ammunition, consisting of over 23,000 bullets, to the Libyan Jamahiriya via a third party who allegedly negotiated the deal with the Maltese dealer. 

Police had arrested the two after they monitored Mr Azzopardi’s shop in Rabat and then stopped a car driven by the other co-accused minutes after he left the shop. 

Inside the car, they found several boxes of live ammunition for which the seller had not yet received payment and which, according to Mr Yaacob, was to be delivered to a third party. 

The driver insisted that he was merely a go-between transporting the ammunition, as he had done on previous occasions.  

The dealer, however, insisted that he had no clue what the other man intended to do with that ammunition,which he had promised to pay for the following day. 

When delivering judgment, the court, presided over by magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit, discarded the statement released by Mr Yaacob since he had not been assisted by a lawyer during his interrogation. 

Upon the rest of the evidence put forward, the court concluded that the more serious charges had been based on “speculations” rather than “concrete evidence.” 

The common design, essential in proving the crime of complicity, had not been proven, said the court, pointing out that the mere fact that Mr Yaacob had collected ammunition from an arms shop was no proof of a common plan.  

Nor did the circumstantial evidence prove that the co-accused had conspired with third parties, the court said, observing that the third man mentioned throughout the proceedings had remained a “fictitious figure” since the prosecution had brought no “tangible evidence” in that direction.  

Whilst clearing both accused of the more serious charges, the court fined Mr Azzopardi €3500 for failing to list the ammunition on his arms register and for consigning it to Mr Yaacob, a non-licensed customer, who, in turn was handed a one-year jail term suspended for 2 years. 

Lawyers Joseph Giglio and Patrick Valentino were counsel to Mr Azzopardi. 

Lawyers Franco Debono, Amadeus Cachia and Maroushka Debono were counsel to Mr Yaacob.