A defence lawyer yesterday told a court that in its case against foreign women in connection with lap dancing in adult clubs, the executive police is trying to impose its views on the Maltese public and is “adopting an attitude similar to that adopted in Taliban states.”

Dr Joseph Giglio was making his submissions bringing to an end the compilation of evidence against 35 women who are all pleading not guilty to committing immoral acts in public, participating in a brothel and committing other indecent acts in public. Twenty-one of the women are Russian, seven are Ukrainian, four are Czech, two are Slovakian, one is from Estonia while one other is from Poland.

In his submissions for the defence, Dr Giglio said the prosecution “failed to prove its case not out of negligence but because it had no evidence and had no case in the first place”. He said the prosecution, in 2007, was trying to impose its views on what is moral or immoral, good or bad.

In a long speech laden with sarcastic and snide remarks to highlight the “senselessness” of the case, which he also referred to as “a tragedy of errors,” Dr Giglio said he was “seriously wondering whether we were in Malta in 2007 or in a Taliban state”.

In a free country like ours, people cannot impose principles about our ways of life, especially with regard to the issue of morality, he said.

Dr Giglio said he could not understand how the prosecution was still insisting about the first charge brought against the women – that of participating and managing a brothel – when several prosecuting officers said that they had no evidence of prostitution to sustain this charge.

Moreover, he said, the prosecution’s argument that just because the women receive a commission on the earning makes them part of the management team does not hold water.

On the issue of morality – the crux of the whole court case – Dr Giglio said the Maltese society was in a constant process of evolution and what was immoral several years ago is no longer considered as immoral. As examples, the lawyer said that until 1981, adultery was illegal, while homosexuality was a criminal offence.

“No law says that lap dancing is immoral. Each person has the right to choose and decide on the basis of his or her morals and not on the morals of the executive police. The police are pretending to be our ‘Big Brother,’ slapping us on the hand on what we should and should no do,” he said.

Dr Giglio also referred to the meeting between the owners of the adult clubs and a number of senior police officers at the depot where the owners were told that their dancers were allowed to perform pole and table dances but lap dancing was not permissible just because there is some form of contact. “There is more contact between two people dancing the lambada,” he said.

The lawyer also referred to the testimony of Police Inspector Antonello Grech who said that the police were given instruction to arrest anyone wearing a tanga. Inspector Grech had added that wearing a tanga on a beach is not illegal whereas wearing a tanga in these clubs is illegal and immoral. “Does this make any sense?” he asked.

Dr Giglio submitted a copy of the January issue of First – The Malta Independent on Sunday magazine – which carried an article on Yada’s Circle of Senses, being advertised as a “sensual journey”. This event, he said, is being held under the patronage of the Tourism and Culture Ministry.

“The police have to accept that we cannot live in the bulb that they want us to live in. Where is the logic of all this case? The prosecution failed to prove its case. The court should clear all the women of the charges brought against them because we are living in Malta in 2007 and not in a Taliban state,” he said.

On his part, chief prosecutor Superintendent Peter Paul Zammit said that practicing an immoral act in public is an offence and said that these clubs are public places. He said “lap dancing puts an emphasis on sex which is obscene and an offending act”.

Superintendent Zammit said Maltese society has to have a certain level of morality. He said the premises used for these “immoral acts” have a reputation of offering sex-related services.

“We have to put the issue under the microscope to determine whether this is for prostitution purposes or some other immoral acts. Immoral is what the average person sees as immoral. The prosecution has proven its case that these girls were practising what they believed was nothing wrong but which is obscene and in breach of the licence of the club for which they worked.”

He continued: “Lap dancing is part of the sex industry and is detrimental to gender equality. The reputation of these clubs is tied closely to striptease and eroticism which is not acceptable in Malta. The defence took the issue out of context,” he concluded.

In reply to the prosecution’s submissions, Dr Giglio said that according to law, the prosecution can request the court to hear the case behind closed doors if it thinks that the details of the case can offend public morals.

“If the prosecution really believes that these girl performed immoral acts in public, why did it not ask the court to hear the case behind closed doors? The prosecution is in a pathetic and checkmate situation,” he concluded.

Presiding magistrate Antonio Mizzi postponed the case to 13 February for judgement.