Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech slammed the prosecution for presenting boxes of paperwork in the money laundering case against Nexia BT.

The magistrate refused to accept three large boxes of documentary evidence, telling prosecution that they should have gone through it themselves and presented only what was necessary.

The boxes were brought by Emily Benson – a witness representing the Malta Financial Services Authority – and consisted of documents relating to licenses for firms linked to Nexia BT director Brian Tonna.

“What are we, Wasteserv? Do we just throw out documents to the court now?" the magistrate queried upon seeing the boxes.

"This has to stop. One has to bring only what is relevant. Not all the backing documents and documents and more documents,” she said.

The magistrate remarked that court staff had an enormous workload in trying to deal with the masses of documents being presented in various money laundering cases.

Benson told the court that the MFSA had actually halved the amount of documents being presented, and initially said that the prosecution were “guessing” what the MFSA had in hand – a remark which was later struck off from court record after in-chamber discussions.

The defence meanwhile said that the prosecution had clearly not done its homework, and that he would need three years to prepare his defence given the sheer mass of documents.

Four people from Nexia BT: Brian Tonna, Karl Cini, Manuel Castagna, and Katrin Bondin Carter are facing charges of money laundering among others. 

They were among a number of people, including former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, arrested in connection with inquiries into alleged corruption and money laundering.

All the accused are pleading not guilty.

The case continues on June 3.