A Constitutional Court appeal altered a sentence from January of this year when the Attorney General was ordered to pay €3,500 in compensation to a man, Malcolm Said, who was charged with cocaine trafficking. The new amount to be paid in compensation is €1,600.

The original order was for a €2,500 compensatuon to be paid to Said for a breach of his fundamental human rights as he was charged on the strength of a statement he made without legal assistance in 2008. The court ordered the AG to pay a further €1,000 in compensation for the delay in pressing charges. Both sums were now reduced to €800.

Malcolm Said, who was arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession had admitted in August 2008 to occasional cocaine use after being interrogated without legal assistance. The first court which ordered the compensation had agreed with Said’s defence that the five years it took for criminal proceedings to start in 2013 was proof of unnecessary delay.

This court, however, disagreed saying that, although Said was left in a state of uncertainty, there is no proof that after the charge was made, the Criminal Court didn’t crack on adequately. This court also disagreed with the idea of a breach of rights in terms of giving a statement without legal representation saying that it would have been a breach had the statement itself been used against Said in criminal proceedings.

The court was presided by Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri. Malcolm Said was represented by lawyers Dr Franco Debono, Dr Amadeus Cachia and Dr Angie Muscat.