Suspected drug trafficker battling Italian extradition gets bail third time
A man wanted in Italy to face prosecution over his suspected involvement in a drug trafficking ring, has been granted bail for the third time in a row after claiming his rights would be breached if he is extradited. John Spiteri, a 56-year-old Qrendi man at the centre of a complex extradition saga, was released from pre-trial arrest by the Court of Criminal Appeal upon various considerations, including the fact that he was still presumed innocent at this stage. The man was first arrested in June on the strength of a European Arrest Warrant issued by a court in Catania. He is wanted to face charges of having imported drugs into Italy from Albania, to traffick in Italy and Malta. Mr Justice Aaron Bugeja, who earlier this month had green-lighted Spiteri’s extradition, clearly outlined the distinction between Maltese law and proceedings under foreign jurisdictions as far as extradition cases were concerned. Under the Maltese legal system when a person targeted by extradition raises a “fundamental rights defence,” that issue falls within the competence of the constitutional courts, he explained this week. Under various foreign jurisdictions, such a matter is decided by the same court...