A court ruling granting bail with strict conditions to disbarred lawyer Patrick Spiteri, which would effectively have been similar to house arrest, was revoked today after an appeal by the Attorney General.

Spiteri had remained in jail after a decree given by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit, pending the outcome of the appeal filed by the AG.

Spiteri was extradited to Malta from England in May to face charges of fraud and misappropriation that total some €7.4 million.

He has repeatedly requested bail mostly due to health issues, while also arguing that he is unable to physically access documents he needs to prepare his defence.

In her ruling, magistrate Zammit assessed the crimes Spiteri is accused of as “serious but not most serious”. After seeing that the accused was offering a third party guarantor and had a fixed address in Malta and after taking into consideration his documented medical condition, the former lawyer was granted bail under very strict conditions.

The Attorney General filed an appeal against the decree the next day, arguing that Spiteri had effectively been granted house arrest, which does not exist under Maltese law.

In a decision handed down today, Judge Edwina Grima quashed the bail decree because the "house arrest" imposes too many restrictive conditions and was not a correct form of bail.

Judge Grima ruled that house arrest is not liberty but a state of arrest.  Therefore, the Criminal Court said, if the Court of Magistrates believed that Spiteri ought to have been given bail, then it should have granted him effective liberty and not kept him in a state of arrest at home. 

Lawyer Stefano Filletti is defence counsel to Spiteri.