Adrian Hillman allegedly derived over €1 million in proceeds of crime mainly at the expense of Progress Press, which he chaired until 2016, a court heard.
A breakdown of the illicit gains allegedly made by Hillman and two of his companies was supplied by prosecuting Inspector Joseph Xerri who took the witness stand when the ongoing compilation of evidence resumed on Monday.
Hillman, who followed the hearing via video link on Monday, is pleading not guilty to money laundering, criminal conspiracy, fraud to the detriment of Progress Press Ltd and Malta Enterprise, making a false declaration to a public authority and accepting bribes.
Prosecutors believe Progress Press spent millions of dollars more on buying printing machines from Kasco Limited than it should have, with suspected backhanders being traced to accounts controlled by Hillman, former Progress Press chairman Vince Buhagiar, Kasco owner Keith Schembri and Schembri's business partner Malcolm Scerri.
Some €240,000 were allegedly traced to the accounts of Natworks Overseas limited in Cyprus, declared as consultancy fees but perceived by investigators as “cover-ups,” said Xerri, explaining that the company had no employees.
Hillman’s other company, Lester Holdings Limited, allegedly received €111,000 and €10,000 from Kasco Limited.
The inquiry had also allegedly traced over €1 million to Hillman from commissions on the sale of the printing machines, the inspector continued.
Asked by defence lawyer Stefano Filletti whether those amounts had been supplied by foreign experts, the inspector replied in the affirmative.
The rest of the sitting focused on a request for the variation of the freezing order over the accused’s assets, issued upon Hillman’s arraignment last year.
“Let’s hope that the prosecution brings this to port. So far port is nowhere in sight,” started off Filletti, hitting out at the prosecution’s “immoral” and “strait jacket” interpretation of the law on freezing orders.
'Blinkered approach' to the law
The prosecution insisted that the law was rigid, but these were “courts of justice not simply courts of law,” and thus, the court could not adopt “a blinkered approach” that would result in a breach of constitutional rights.
Following up much along the same lines as defence lawyers in an earlier hearing concerning Nexia BT, Filletti pointed out that even when the amount of proceeds of crime was determined, the prosecution insisted on “seizing everything.”
“It’s a witch-hunt,” said Filletti, arguing that once the amount was known it did not make sense for the prosecution to insist on retaining the blanket freezing order.
As for the argument that the accused could pursue a civil action to prove the legitimacy of his assets after final judgment, what sense did it make to wait until then if such proof was at hand now, Filletti said.
Freezing orders had become “the order of the day,” and their effects badly impacted the accused and his family who had to get by with the statutory allowance of just over €13,000.
Loans, insurance payments, schooling and other daily expenses far exceeded that allowance and made it practically impossible for the accused to get by “in this day and age,” the lawyer said.
But AG lawyer Antoine Agius Bonnici rebutted that the court at this stage was not competent to decide whether the law violated the accused’s rights or not.
“The law does not grant leeway to vary the freezing order” and the burden of proving that the funds were not illicit shifted onto the accused, the prosecutor argued.
Money laundering laws were based on the presumption that everything belonging to the accused amounted to illicit gains and there were very particular circumstances where variation of freezing orders was envisaged by the legislator.
But Filletti promptly rebutted the argument.
“The elephant in the room is one, namely that the rights of the accused are being violated by the criminal courts.”
When the prosecution declared that the quantum of illicit gains was known, but nonetheless insisted on freezing all of the accused’s assets, “that interpretation was wrong,” stressed Hillman’s lawyer.
"The rights of the accused are being violated because the law is being interpreted in such manner that freezing orders cannot be tweaked by the criminal courts.”
“The law is completely wrong,” said Filletti.
The case continues in June.