The two alleged hitmen accused of carrying out the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, George and Alfred Degiorgio, have filed a second Constitutional case, in which they claim to have suffered several breaches of their rights since their arrest in December 2017.

Their first constitutional claim had been filed in 2019 and was dismissed in 2021. The brothers have also filed a multitude of bail requests, all of which have so far been denied.

The Degiorgios have been under arrest since December 2017, when they were charged in connection with the car bombing which targeted the journalist.

In their latest application, filed against the State Advocate this morning before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, their lawyer, William Cuschieri, pointed out that they have been held under preventive arrest for nearly four and a half years, with every one of their bail applications being opposed by the Attorney General and eventually rejected by the Court of Magistrates, the Criminal Court as well as the Court of Criminal Appeal.

“In some of these decrees, comments were made [by the courts] which are prejudicial, not only to the issue of bail, but also to the merits of the charges they are facing,” claimed the lawyer.

The Degiorgios listed five alleged breaches of their fundamental human rights in the application filed on Tuesday.

They are claiming that their continued detention under arrest, now for over four years, was unreasonable and too long. “They are still presumed innocent, but as a fact it is felt that they have started to serve an effective prison sentence with no prospect of being granted bail.”

The second complaint was that the courts’ oft-repeated justification for refusing bail, that their release could cause public disorder, was sending a message to the general public that they should not be released from prison, “thereby bringing to naught any hope that they could ever have a fair hearing.”

The Constitutional Court had also breached this right in its October 2021 decision to reject a human rights claim filed by the Degiorgios over their continued detention, argued the lawyer.

“With all due respect, if the highest court of the land is saying that it is in the public interest that they remain under arrest, how can they ever be granted bail and how can jurors…give a verdict of not guilty?”

The Degiorgio’s third complaint was that they were suffering inhuman or degrading treatment by the continued extension of their arrest, which was not allowing them to live many aspects of their lives, as if they were already serving a prison sentence.

They also argued that their right to liberty was being breached by the fact that no court of criminal jurisdiction had managed to achieve a balance between the interests of society and their presumption of innocence.

The alleged hitmen also claimed that the Criminal Court had caused their pre-trial detention to be further prolonged by a decree it issued in February 2022, which upheld the Attorney General’s request to refuse bail for procedural reasons.

Finally, the Degiorgio brothers contend that the oft-quoted sections of the Criminal Code in which crimes in respect of which bail shall not be granted are listed, itself breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. “These dispositions give rise to preventive custody which can be extended even indefinitely, by not stipulating a maximum time for the extension of preventive custody should the accused for example request the hearing of witnesses, files an appeal from a decision on preliminary pleas or requests an adjournment.”

The application asked the court to declare that the Degiorgio brothers had suffered a breach of their rights and that the impugned sections of the Criminal Code prejudiced their right to a fair trial.

The court was also asked to order the release of the accused hitmen and order the State to pay them compensation for the breaches they claim to have suffered.