A court has rejected a constitutional case filed by convicted murderer Ronnie Azzopardi, known as Is-Sufu, seeking to overturn his life sentence over the 2005 car bomb killing.

The bombing targetted his brother's partner, Angela Bondin.

Azzopardi was convicted in March 2013 over the explosion of a bomb in Żejtun on 18 June 2005, which killed Angela Bondin and seriously injured Therese Grima.

He was also convicted of attempting to kill four other people and of other offences connected to the explosion. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. 

His conviction was upheld on appeal in May 2019.

Azzopardi filed constitutional proceedings in September 2024, claiming that his conviction had been based on false testimony and that this had breached his right to a fair hearing and his right to private and family life.

He asked the court to declare that his conviction was based on allegedly false evidence and that his fundamental rights had been breached, and consequently to quash his conviction and order his release from prison.

Alternatively, Azzopardi asked the court to use its powers under Article 4 (2) of Chapter 319 to quash his conviction and order his release even if no fundamental rights violation was established.

He also sought compensation for the alleged breaches and any other remedy the court deemed appropriate.

Witness allegedly changed his version

His claims centred on the testimony of eyewitness Joseph Grima, who had told the criminal court that he had seen the person who placed the bag containing the bomb and identified Azzopardi by his build rather than his face.

Azzopardi, however, claimed that Grima subsequently said he had never identified him as the person who planted the bomb.

As part of his constitutional case, Azzopardi presented three video recordings taken by members of his family in which Grima was questioned about his testimony.

He further argued that Grima could be heard insisting that he had not identified him as the person who planted the bomb.

The court, however, stressed that it could not use constitutional proceedings to determine whether Grima had given false testimony or to reassess Azzopardi's guilt.

It said constitutional courts are not courts of "third or fourth instance" which can simply reconsider evidence already assessed by the criminal courts. Instead, their role is to determine whether a person's fundamental rights were breached during those proceedings.

Court says conviction was not based solely on Grima

The court also rejected Azzopardi's argument that his conviction had effectively rested solely on Grima's evidence, noting that prosecutors had presented a number of other witnesses and pieces of evidence during the criminal proceedings.

These included evidence concerning a vehicle linked to Azzopardi which was used in the crime, CCTV footage showing his vehicle being driven towards the area where the offence occurred, and evidence that the mobile phone number he was using at the time had been located in the area when the crime took place.

The court also noted that the alibi provided by Azzopardi did not cover the time during which the offence was committed.

It said the prosecution had not charged Azzopardi arbitrarily but had relied on a number of pieces of evidence which, taken together, led investigators to identify him as responsible for the crime.

The court also noted that the Court of Criminal Appeal had already considered Grima's identification evidence and found no miscarriage of justice.

The appeal court had concluded that jurors could reach their verdict on the basis of a series of circumstantial and other direct evidence presented during the trial.

The constitutional court further found no evidence that Azzopardi had been prevented from properly defending himself, denied adequate time or facilities to prepare his defence, or prevented from calling or cross-examining witnesses.

Videos were not enough to overturn conviction

The court distinguished Azzopardi's case from an earlier case on which he had heavily relied. In that case, a witness had admitted giving false testimony and was subsequently convicted of perjury.  

In Azzopardi's case, however, there was no equivalent court judgment, sworn evidence or perjury proceedings establishing that Grima had lied. Instead, the allegation rested on amateur video recordings made by members of Azzopardi's family, while Grima himself had not been called to testify in the constitutional proceedings.

The court therefore found that there was no clear and concrete evidence establishing that Grima's original testimony had been false.

It also rejected Azzopardi's claim that his imprisonment breached his right to private and family life, finding no violation arising from his incarceration under a criminal conviction which had been confirmed on appeal.

His alternative request to have the conviction quashed was also rejected.

The court reiterated that Grima's testimony was not the only evidence linking Azzopardi to the crime and that the alleged falsity of his testimony had not been established.

The judge also noted that Grima had given evidence at several stages of the criminal proceedings and had consistently maintained that he identified Azzopardi by his build rather than his face, including when he testified again before the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2014.

The court consequently dismissed all six of Azzopardi's requests and ordered him to bear the costs of the proceedings.

Judge Audrey Demicoli handed down the judgement.