A man’s jail term was reduced from 20 years to 13 and his Lm30,000 fine was reduced to Lm20,000 after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the jurors could have never found him guilty of drug trafficking since no evidence was presented in court to sustain this charge.

The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Filletti and Mr Justice David Scicluna, reduced the jail term of Khaled Ali Musbah who was found guilty of conspiring to import heroin into Malta, importing a quantity of heroin and heroin trafficking.

Musbah was involved in the importation of 449 grams of heroin in 2001 which has a market value of around Lm37,000.

In its judgement, the Court of Criminal Appeal said that after examining the documents of the case, it resulted that Musbah should have never been found guilty of drug trafficking since there was no evidence linking him to this charge.

The Court of Appeal therefore reduced the jail term from 20 years to 13 and also reduced the fine from Lm30,000 to Lm20,000.