A man was yesterday conditionally discharged for 18 months after he was found guilty of cannabis possession but was cleared of trafficking cannabis and conspiring to deal in ecstasy in 1998.

Stephen Caruana, 41, from Marsalforn, Gozo, had been charged with conspiring to deal in ecstasy, the possession of ecstasy, trafficking cannabis and cannabis possession.

Magistrate Lawrence Quintano, who presided over the case, heard how on 9 April 1998, police carrying out a road block in Cirkewwa saw a car swerve to the left as it was being driven in the direction of the queue to get onto the ferry. The police noticed that the driver lost control of the wheel and even hit the pavement when, with hesitation, he bent to pick something up and then threw it out of the car.

It resulted that the driver, Stephen Caruana, had thrown a plastic container out of the car when he realised that there was a road block. Inside the container, the police found eight ecstasy pills and 0.77 grammes of cannabis.

When he was stopped and questioned, Caruana told police that that day he had travelled from Gozo to Malta to visit his mother. A friend of his had called him and asked him to pick up something from him while he was in Malta and take it to Gozo.

So after he visited his mother, he met this man who gave him a small plastic container to take to Gozo. The man was to collect the container from Gozo later.

Caruana insisted that he did was not aware of what the plastic container had and even less so that it contained drugs. He said he only suspected that the container had drugs when he saw the police at a road block in Cirkewwa.

Handing down his judgement, Magistrate Quintano said he was not convinced of Caruana’s version for a number of reasons, mainly that the plastic container was transparent. However the magistrate said that Caruana could not be found guilty of conspiracy as one of the elements of the crime, which is an agreed plan of action to conspire in drugs, had not been proven. He also cleared Caruana of possession of ecstasy because ecstasy was not a specific medicine as mentioned in the charge but a restricted one and thus fell under a different charge.

He therefore conditionally discharged Caruana for 18 months for cannabis possession because the court ruled that the amount found in his possession was for his own personal use.

Police inspector Abraham Zammit prosecuted while Dr Roberto Montalto and Dr Jose Herrera appeared for Caruana.