Former lawyer Patrick Spiteri has been given three months by a magistrate to prepare his defence against multiple charges of fraud, amounting to around €7 million.

Spiteri was extradited to Malta from England last May, and has been held in custody since.

He has made a number of requests to be released on bail, primarily citing health reasons, and that he is unable to physically access many box-files of documents he says he needs for his defence, some of which are held in court and partly at a Guardamangia property.

Lawyer Stefano Filletti, on behalf of Spiteri, again said that his client was unable to access all the files and thus is unable to prepare his defence.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli accepted a suggestion made by the Director of Corradino Correctional Facility for the boxes to be taken to the prison wing, where Spiteri currently resides on his own, with ten boxes being allowed at a time, to further be replaced by ten once he is done.

So far, the director said, ten boxes were taken. Filletti highlighted that there are more than 300 cardboard boxes containing 10 box files in each. He asked for the rest of boxes to be brought a few at a time.

The director said that this was possible, but the court not wanting potential time-wasting, ordered that the defence commit itself to taking  an amount of boxes within a period.

The CCF director ordered that the over 350 boxes of documents be brought to the prison, however not all at once. The court gave Spiteri three months to prepare his defence for trial.