The 10-year legal saga of kidney transplant patient Christopher Bartolo appears to be nearing its end as the man, whose five-year drug-related jail term was quashed by the Constitutional Court, is now set to be tried before a Magistrates’ Court.

The information was divulged on Thursday when proceedings against Bartolo resumed before the Criminal Court following a previous sitting in June wherein his lawyer, Franco Debono, requested the Attorney General to issue a counter-order so that the case could be sent back to the Magistrates’ Court. 

Bartolo’s saga dates back to 2013, sparked by the discovery of 167 grams of cannabis resin at his Gozo home. 

The suspect, who was a kidney patient, was interrogated by police as soon as he got back home from a gruelling routine dialysis session. 

During that interrogation, Bartolo admitted to dealing in a kilogram of the drug. 

That self-incriminating statement, released without the assistance of a lawyer at a time when Maltese law did not provide for such assistance in the pre-arraignment phase, was subsequently challenged.

A constitutional court declared that statement inadmissible in evidence because it violated the accused’s fundamental right to a fair hearing. 

Bartolo’s statement before the inquiring magistrate was also struck down in a constitutional challenge. 

However, while those statements were being challenged before the constitutional fora, proceedings against Bartolo continued before the Criminal Court which ultimately found him guilty and condemned him to a five-term of imprisonment. 

Following the final pronouncement by the Constitutional Court, that conviction was quashed and the court ordered that Bartolo was to be placed in the position he had been before the Criminal Court judgment. 

His case was subsequently assigned to Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera.

During a hearing last month, Bartolo’s lawyer argued that the case had acquired a new dimension once the conviction was annulled and the accused’s statements removed. 

The case no longer dealt with charges concerning one kilo of the drug, as mentioned by Bartolo in the statement, but only the minimal amount found in his possession. 

This is why the defence was requesting the Attorney General to issue a counter order so that Bartolo’s case could be sent back to the Magistrate’s Court, where he faced a less severe punishment. 

When the proceedings resumed on Thursday, AG lawyer Abigail Caruana Vella informed the court that the AG would be issuing a counter-order after taking note of the submissions by the defence. 

In light of that information, the court deferred the case to September.

Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Francesca Zarb are defence counsel.