Couple charged after prosecution notes Mercedes they owned did not tally with their income
Unemployed couple arraigned over money laundering charges
20 May 2021, 7:44pm
by Matthew Agius
An unemployed young couple has been arraigned in court and made to answer money laundering charges after prosecutors allegedly noted that they owned a used Mercedes that did not tally with their income.
Before magistrate Monica Vella this afternoon, assisted by lawyers from the office of the Attorney General, police inspectors Paul John Farrugia and Robert Azzopardi charged Justin Farrugia and Marlene Dimech with money laundering offences.
Farrugia was unemployed after being boarded out and his girlfriend was pregnant and had a young child, the court was told.
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A 55-year-old woman has been cleared of domestic violence against her husband after he withdrew the report and invoked a section of the law allowing him to request that charges be dropped.
The woman, whose name cannot be published by court order, had been charged last month after her husband filed a police report claiming he was physically abused by his wife. The couple also have a daughter.
She was accused of using violence, including moral, psychological violence and coercion against her husband. She was also accused of harassing the man and causing him to fear violence, holding him against his will and threatening him.
The driver of a double-decker tourist bus that crashed in 2018, killing two and injuring many others, tested negative in a breathalyser test after the incident, a court heard on Friday.
Charles D’Amato, 27, faces charges of involuntary homicide following the deaths of a Spanish woman and Belgian man and injuries suffered by 21 other passengers in the April 2018 crash, when passengers on the bus’ top deck were hit by a tree branch.
Prosecutors have also charged him with dangerous and negligent driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
An inspector who testified on Friday said that a breathalyser test administered after the incident found no traces of alcohol in D’Amato’s breath.
Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti has reassigned all of Magistrate Monica Vella’s criminal and civil case in the Gozo court, with sources saying this was down to slow throughput of work.
The decision was communicated last Thursday when lawyers with pending cases before Magistrate Vella were informed about the change. All civil and criminal cases were reassigned to Magistrate Brigette Sultana except those cases which Magistrate Vella had deferred for judgment.
Magistrate Vella has now been assigned to work at the law courts in Valletta.
Sources said Magistrate Vella had been assigned the bulk of cases that were pending when Magistrate Paul Coppini retired in October 2019. Some of his other cases were assigned to Magistrate Simone Grech.