Magistrate Josette Demicoli has upheld an argument by defence lawyer Joe Giglio who described as "legalised usury" a prosecution request for a man accused of evading import duty to be fined over the entire amount of the consignment rather than the amount he under-declared.

Gordon Spiteri, 43, from Balzan, was accused of under-declaring the value of the meat he imported in two containers in 2007. 

Police investigations said the declared values given to the Customs Department in Malta and those processed by customs officials in New Zealand were not the same.

Out of three consignments, one container was fully-declared while the value of the meat in the other two containers was under-declared.

Defence lawyer Joe Giglio did not contest the under-declaration but strongly contested the calculation of the actual amount of duty owed to Customs.

Dr Giglio said that the prosecution was expecting his client to pay the full amount, without deducting the amount of duty already paid on the meat.

This, he said, amounted to "legalised usury". 

The court heard how Spiteri had paid €47,671 in duty on the first container when he should have paid €50,999, a discrepancy of €3,329, while on the second container Spiteri had paid €50,857 when he should have paid €57,135 - a discrepancy of €6,278 due to the under-declaration.

The law states the fine that must be imposed on someone guilty of evading import duty is three times the amount actually evaded. 

Dr Giglio argued that while the total of evaded import duty was €9,607, the prosecution was requesting the court to fine Spiteri over the total import duty for the two containers - €50,999 and €57,135, resulting  in a fine of €324,402.

Dr Giglio said the court could not ignore the €98,528 that had already been paid in import duty for the two containers.

Magistrate Demicoli upheld this argument and fined Spiteri €28,821, equivalent to three times the under-declared import duty of €9,607.

Police Inspector Maurice Curmi prosecuted.