A former official at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, Edward Caruana, has had his acquittal in a bribery case confirmed on appeal.
Last August a Magistrate’s Court had concluded that Caruana was not a public officer in terms of law in a case where Caruana was charged with bribery and corruption between January 2015 and October 2016.
The prosecution had alleged that he asked for bribes in relation to various government work contracts on the building of new schools and maintenance works.
The Attorney General appealed the decision of the first court.
When delivering judgment on Wednesday, the Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Madam Justice Edwina Grima, upheld the AG’s first plea concluding that Caruana was indeed employed in public service and was thus a public officer.
However, there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he had committed the unlawful exaction as charged.
Like the first court, which had carried out a detailed and in-depth analysis of the evidence, the court of appeal said it lacked the moral certainty that it was Caruana who had falsified invoices or quotations for payment by various contractors engaged by FTS.
Evidence showed that it was Caruana, as manager of summer projects, maintenance division and coordination unit since November 2013, who oversaw works at schools in Gozo.
He also delivered payment cheques.
In many cases, there were amounts that varied significantly from those in the original tenders, the court found.
Although those facts could amount to malpractices and they were not in line with public procurement laws, those alone did not lead to criminal wrongdoing, the court said.
Although there might be some suspicion that the appellant’s hand was present in all these manouvres, since he featured in all three scenarios upon which charges were based, yet the facts as recounted in this voluminous process remained just suspicions and nothing else, the court added.
Caruana might not have adopted proper practices in the public service, but the evidence did not attain the high degree of proof needed to find guilt in terms of criminal law.
Lawyers Stephen Tonna Lowell and Stefano Filletti assisted the appellant.