An undertaker was acquitted over a string of charges after a court ruled that there was insufficient proof and that the case began through rivalry between competitors.
It was noted that the case started due to rivalry between Laferla and another competitor who expected to be re-commissioned to provide funeral services for the male family member since they had previously been commissioned to provide services for his late wife.
"It is a practice that relatives of a deceased person end up bombarded by various people offering their [funeral] services at such a sensitive time," the court observed.
Magistrate Joe Mifsud, presiding over the case, highlighted a lack of understanding on how the Health Department of the day issued a permit in favour of the accused to work as an undertaker while he was employed at the Addolorata Cemetery.
"The lack of wisdom by whoever issued the permit has led to allegations of conflict of interest and with reason has raised suspicions in a case such as this."
Salvatore Laferla, 64, was accused of making unlawful gains through his position as a public official, fraud, making false declarations, making personal gains through false declarations, using official computers without authorisation in order access data and tampering with computer data without authorisation.
The case relates to the burial of a husband and wife, Salvina and Joseph Agius. Salvina was buried on 29 October 2010 while Joseph was buried on 11 October 2011. Both burials took place at the family grave owned by the Agiuses.
Salvina Agius' funeral services were undertaken by Michelle Colombo while Joseph Agius' were undertaken by the accused, Salvatore Laferla and his wife.
Colombo had filed a complaint about the lack of conformity to regulations with regards the burial of Joseph Agius.
Police began investigating the case after a report was filed on 31 October 2011 by the Senior Principal Environmental Health Officer Mario Cassar and by the burial administrator of the health department, Paul Micallef.
Tipped off by Colombo, Micallef and Cassar filed the complaint on the basis that supervisor at the Addolorata Cemetery – the accused – was permitted to deliver funeral services which should not have been the case.
Police discovered that data inputted in the official burial records on the burial of Joseph Agius had been inputted by Laferla, who was a supervisor at Addolorata at the time.
Cassar and Micallef testified to say that the burial could not have taken place in the grave used for Agius, because a burial had taken place at that grave less than a year prior which is prohibited under sanitary regulations.
It had been proved however that the Agius family had approached Laferla and his wife, and not the other way round. It also emerged that the Agius family could have availed themselves of another family grave. This means that it would not have made sense for Laferla to fraudulently input data in order for that particular grave to have been used, since the Agius' could have used another one and Laferla would still have received the proceeds of the funeral service offered.
The accused had confirmed that he had inputted information on the burial of Joseph Agius.
The prosecution maintained that the information had been changed by the accused because he had a private interest in his conflicting roles of undertaker together and government supervisor at Addolorata.
Through the testimony of various other cemetery employees it emerged that the system used to maintain burial records was defective.
He was therefore cleared of misusing the official computers and tampering with data.
On the first charge of making personal gains through his position in a public role, Laferla was acquitted of this after witnesses related to the deceased testified that no pressure was exerted by the accused against her family.
It was highlighted that Laferla simply applied for an undertaking license and was granted one, without any of such activity taking place in hiding. The courts therefore found that the level of proof required to find the accused guilty was not sufficient.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2ikrvaI
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