One of two lawyers charged with attempting to bribe a Times of Malta journalist last November wants the case against him dropped in view of a lack of “a shred of evidence”. 

Lawyer Stephen Tonna Lowell, defence counsel to lawyer Charles Mercieca, said the prosecution had not brought any evidence to sustain the charge against him. He insisted that the Magistrate presiding over the case, Natasha Galea Sciberras, should rule that the case against him should not proceed. 

He was making submissions on whether there was enough evidence for the case against the lawyers should proceed. 

Mercieca and Gianluca Caruana Curran are facing criminal proceedings over the attempted bribery of Times of Malta journalist Ivan Martin. The pair, who are representing murder suspect Yorgen Fenech, are denying the charges.

The prima facie stage is basically a court’s decision on whether there was enough evidence for a case against a person to continue and for him to be placed under a bill of indictment.

According to law, the prosecution has one month to present all its evidence to sustain its criminal case against someone accused of committing a crime. 

Tonna Lowell insisted that there was “absolutely no evidence” linking Mercieca to the attempted bribery. “There is no evidence at all on Mercieca. Zero. I’m not going to speculate on why he was charged too because we'll be here till tonight. But the truth of the matter is that there is absolutely nothing against him.

Martin, the main witness in the case, never mentioned that it was Mercieca who offered him the money and none of the prosecution’s witnesses ever mentioned him in connection with this case,” the lawyer argued. 

He added that even on Caruana Carruan, the defence feels that there is no evidence that he had committed a crime but was leaving it up to the court to decide whether there was enough evidence to convict. 

On his part, prosecuting officer Anthony Scerri argued that there was enough evidence to show that the lawyers had tried to bribe a Times of Malta journalist.

He rebutted the defence’s claims that there was no evidence against Mercieca, insisting that there was also the element of complicity in a crime. It was Mercieca who organised the meetings with the journalist and the offer took place in his office. 

He said all the elements to prove the crime of private bribery were proven in court. The law spoke about the acceptance or promise of an offer in connection with someone’s office with a view of influencing the person in the carrying out of his duties.

Martin’s testimony

In a previous court sitting, Martin recounted how he had first established contact with Mercieca in May 2020 to get his reaction to a story about him leaving the Attorney General’s office to join Fenech’s defence team.  

Martin said he met Mercieca at his Valletta office on October 30 during which meeting he was told the lawyers wanted to undermine the credibility of the state witness in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder case.

During this meeting, Martin said Mercieca provided him with some leads and other bits of information, some of which he was interested in pursuing.  

Martin said he set about verifying the information given by Mercieca. The journalist said he managed to confirm some details but was still shaky on others so he sent Mercieca an early draft of the story, informing him he had some questions as he was still unclear about some facts.  

Two days later, he received a WhatsApp message from Mercieca, asking if he was free to meet up. 

The meeting took place and Caruana Curran was present for this second meeting. The journalist recalled how at the end of the meeting, while still chatting with Mercieca, he saw Caruana Curran reaching for what he initially thought were some papers or small post-it notes.  

The journalist said that when he realised that Caruana Curran had handed him between two to four €500 notes, he instantly handed them back to the lawyer and informed his superiors about the matter.  

Police statement as evidence

Earlier in the sitting, the prosecution and defence made submissions on the prosecution’s request for  Martin’s audiovisual statement to the police to be filed as evidence in the spirit of the equality of arms principle mentioned by the court in its decree ordering the police to give the statement to the defence. 

But Tonna Lowell objected to this, insisting that the law precludes a person’s statement to the police from being presented as evidence and inserted in the acts of the case. He said witnesses had to testify physically in court and it is this testimony that counts. 

He said the statement could only be used in cases where the witness is declared as a hostile one or where it needs to be used to confront a witness about one thing or another. 

Magistrate Galea Sciberras ruled that she will hand down her decisions on both matters at the next sitting on March 3. 

Superintendent James Grech is also prosecuting while lawyer Giannella de Marco is also defending the two lawyers.