Two men have been cleared of running an illegal betting operation from a Marsa bar 17 years ago after the court found that the prosecution had not managed to prove its case.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras found that the police had not managed to prove the link between the accused, Anthony Gafa and Raymond Brincat, and the four slot machines found inside Rocky Bar when the police carried out a raid to investigate illegal horse betting.

The raid took place in March 2006 following a tip-off that the bar was being used for an illegal operation.

Upon their arrival, a man began shouting “there’s the police” and when the officers ran upstairs, they found a group of men watching horse races on several televisions.

In the back room of the bar, the police found four slot machines that seemed unlicenced.

The court upheld a request by the defence to delete the statements they had released to the police since at the time the accused could not benefit from legal advice before interrogations.

Magistrate Galea Sciberras ruled that the prosecution had also not managed to prove its case because while it charged the men with possession of illegal slot machines, a court expert appointed by the magisterial inquiry had found that these were amusement machines that did not offer any cash prizes.

Having said that, the court found that the police had not even substantiated the link between Gafa` and the bar, while on Brincat, all the police had was his own admission that he had imported the machines, which could not be used in court since the statement was inadmissible as evidence.

The court, therefore, cleared the two men of all the charges brought against them, pointing out that the case took so long because when she was assigned the case from another magistrate, all the testimonies had to be heard from scratch as no transcripts had been found.

Police Superintendent Raymond Aquilina prosecuted while lawyers Jose` Herrera and Kristina Camilleri Deguara were defence counsel.