A local bus driver has been ordered to serve a 10 month jail term after the courts heard how he corrupted his girlfriend to testify in his favour in relation to a traffic accident.
The accident took place nine years ago and left a woman with life-threatening injuries. At the time of the original arraignment, the accused was found guilty of driving without a valid license but was acquitted of all other charges. The charge he was found guilty for carried a fine of €150.
Massimo Bonello, 43, was subsequently found guilty of corrupting a witness because it transpired that a woman who testified in his favour and was supposed to have seen the accident was actually never present for the incident. The pair had been in a six-year relationship and shared a child.
The victim's husband filed a complaint with the police who subsequently took action against the witness. She was handed a two-year jail term, suspended for four years. She was also slapped with a general interdiction over the perjury charge.
Bonello was charged with complicity in perjury, complicity in taking a false oath and corrupting a witness.
Bonello's partner who had been charged with perjury told the court that on the day in question, he approached her in court to testify on the original incident and allegedly had silently made it clear what she was to do. The court heard that the partner had lived in constant fear of Bonello, and that he had threatened her with custody of the child.
This was denied by Bonello, where he maintained that she had decided to come forward of her own accord.
Magistrate Charmaine Galea, presiding over the case, said that it was clear Bonello was not being truthful.
The defence team argued that the law does not get into offences of complicity in perjury, and that the corruption of a witness would have to be contemplated instead.
Police Inspector Kylie Borg prosecuted.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2t9Fin9
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