Darryl Luke Borg, the man who spent three nights in jail for a crime he never committed, has filed a case before the European Court of Human Rights after a Maltese court awarded him a paltry €150 despite acknowledging his human rights had been breached.

To add insult to injury, the domestic court also ordered him to pay two-thirds of the court fees amounting to over €2,000. 

The sum awarded was described as “minimal” by his lawyers David Camilleri and Joseph Gatt in their application filed before the European human rights body, considering their client had been deprived of his freedom.

They told the European Court that the Maltese Constitutional Court had only found violation of Mr Borg's rights because the accusations against him were not dropped immediately, without finding violation in the man's initial arrest. 

The 27-year-old man's ordeal began on August 6, 2013, when he was arrested, arraigned and remanded in custody over an armed robbery at The Convenience Shop, a grocery store in Mgr Alfred Mifsud Street, Birkirkara. He was receiving treatment for his ADHD condition at Mount Carmel Hospital at the time of his arrest. 

Mr Borg’s lawyers are insisting that the police could have never had a reasonable suspicion that it was their client who committed the robbery because CCTV footage of the crime showed it was clearly not him. The person seen and later convicted had a completely different stature.

They also argued that the police failed to immediately withdraw proceedings against him despite someone else admitting to the crime and that, as a result, Mr Borg remained behind bars for an extra 24 hours.

The court had heard that Criminal Investigations Department police inspectors Joseph Mercieca and Carlos Cordina had received confidential information that Mr Borg was the culprit and he was arrested and charged in court the following day and held in custody.

But two days later, on August 8, Birkirkara police inspector Elton Taliana charged Roderick Grech, 22, from Birkirkara, with the same crime after he confessed and even handed over a balaclava and a plastic toy gun used during the hold-up.

Mr Grech was sentenced to 12 months in jail, suspended for four years, after the court heard that he used the €630 to settle gambling debts.

In its judgment, the Constitutional Court had noted that the CID officers’ decision to arrest Mr Borg was truly based on a reasonable suspicion and that the arrest was not arbitrary. Moreover, it found as “reasonable” the time that had passed between Mr Grech’s arraignment and sentencing to the day when Inspector Mercieca was informed and consulted with the Attorney General’s office on the matter.

However, it found that Mr Borg’s conditional release from arrest once it was ascertained that a mistake had been committed was in breach of his right to liberty. It, therefore, found a breach of right from the minute he was released on bail until the charges were effectively withdrawn three days later.

In their case before the European Court, Dr Camilleri and Dr Gatt argued that Mr Borg's rights had been breached because of an "unjustified deprivation of liberty due to an unlawful arrest without reasonable suspicion".

They held that Mr Borg's initial arrest was unjustified since there was no reasonable suspicion at the time and because their client could "in no way imaginable" be identified from the CCTV footage.

"At the point of arraignment the only evidence was an anonymous informant who could not be produced to give evidence, useless CCTV footage and a past criminal conduct sheet," they stressed.

Moreover, they claimed Mr Borg's rights were further breached when the police failed to retract the charges against him. They said the police had asked for Mr Borg to be granted bail despite knowing that Mr Borg "was totally extraneous to the criminal offence".

The lawyers also attacked the "measly" sum awarded to Mr Borg and the fact that he was ordered to pay court expenses that amounted to much more.  

"So in actual fact, [Mr Borg] is paying for the violation he suffered... Arbitrary detention, when the prosecution has concrete proof that the applicant was completely not involved in the criminal offence is a grave violation of a most fundamental right. It is only through adequate non-pecuniary compensation that one may ameliorate the pain and suffering caused to [Mr Borg] in this case," they said in their application.