Magistrate Aaron Bugeja today ruled that the detention of an Italian fraudster in Malta who is waiting to be repatriated to continue serve his sentence in Italy, cannot be termed illegal.

The case involves Fabio Zulian, of Gallia, Italy who had been arrested on December 10, 2006 and charged with defrauding the Casino di Venezia. Mr Zulian, who fled to Italy, was extradited through a European Arrest Warrant and has been in custody in Malta since October 2011. He had appealed the case but lost it and is in limbo because while he is still being held in Malta, an Italian court in May ruled that he could be repatriated to Italy to serve the rest of his sentence there.

Mr Zulian's lawyer Joe Brincat filed a court application this morning against the authorities contesting his client’s ‘illegal’ detention since he said “it goes against the extradition conditions imposed by an Italian court”.

The Magistrate highlighted that the procedures regarding transfer of sentenced persons being of a cross-border nature necessarily imply formalities which must be followed, meaning that such procedures take time. He said this after taking into consideration that the Maltese and Italian authorities haven’t reached a conclusion for him to be repatriated.

The court agreed with submissions put by the Attorney General’s office that transfer of a person does not imply that he is simply put on a plane and sent to his home country. This, after Dr Brincat argued that there are abundant means of transport to repatriate his client and therefore the reasons behind his client not having been repatriated are not logistical problems.

The magistrate ruled that the decision to keep in him in custody until a decision is taken is not illegal, rejecting Dr Brincat’s arguments. It is still early, he said, to determine however whether there were failures in the administering of the procedures related to the transfer of the prisoner.