Plea-deal evidence from an accomplice stays admissible

The Criminal Court on 7 May 2026 dismissed three preliminary pleas raised by H.Z., who faces a bill of indictment for wilful homicide and other offences. Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera held that criminal intent is a question for the jurors and that an accomplice who testifies after a plea bargain gives admissible evidence. She also held that complaints of an unfair hearing belong before the courts of constitutional jurisdiction.

The facts

The Attorney General filed the bill of indictment in 2025. It alleges that H.Z. and two others entered a jeweller's shop in 2023, tied up and beat the owner, and stole jewellery. According to the indictment, the owner died in 2025 of complications from his injuries.

The indictment charges wilful homicide, with attempted wilful homicide and grievous bodily harm in the alternative. It adds unlawful arrest, aggravated theft, wilful damage, carrying a weapon while committing an offence against the person and disobeying lawful orders.

One of the other men reached a plea bargain, and the case against him became res judicata (finally decided). The records were then sent back to the Court of Magistrates so that he could testify under article 406 of the Criminal Code (Chapter 9 of the Laws of Malta). H.Z. raised three pleas before trial, and later gave up his request to call two defence witnesses whose admissibility the Attorney General had challenged.

What the court held

The first plea sought to annul the homicide count. H.Z. argued that the evidence, read in the light most favourable to the prosecution, could not show the intent to kill. His written pleas relied on his own statement, in which he admitted taking part in the theft but denied striking the owner's head.

The court held that H.Z. based the plea on no provision of law and gave no legal ground for the nullity he claimed. Criminal intent goes to the merits and to the appreciation of evidence, which is for the jurors after the presiding judge addresses them. At this stage the court “m’għandiex is-setgha li tixtrarr il-provi tal-prosekuzzjoni” (has no power to examine the prosecution's evidence) to see whether the accused's claim is true.

The second plea attacked the accomplice's evidence. H.Z. argued that it was paid for with a reduced sentence, had no independent corroboration and breached the right to a fair hearing. The court again found no legal provision behind the plea.

The court held that the test for admissibility is whether evidence is relevant to the matters in issue. Without an exclusionary rule of evidence, the accomplice's testimony is admissible. The court added that it sits as a Criminal Court and has no power to decide questions of a constitutional nature, so a fair-hearing complaint must go to the courts of constitutional jurisdiction.

The third plea claimed a breach of the right to a fair hearing and of equality of arms. H.Z. argued that the accomplice's version had already been accepted as the basis of the accomplice's own conviction, and that he had no chance to cross-examine him. The court found that claim untrue on the record.

When the records were sent back to the Court of Magistrates for the accomplice to testify, H.Z. had every opportunity to cross-examine him and did not do so. The accomplice will also testify again at the trial by jury. The court repeated that any constitutional complaint must be made before the competent courts.

The court dismissed all three pleas. It adjourned the case sine die (without a fixed date) until the outcome of any appeal that may be filed under the law is known.

Why it matters

A preliminary plea before the Criminal Court needs a legal basis. Arguments that the evidence of intent is weak, or that a cooperating accomplice has reasons to lie, go to the weight of the evidence and are for the jurors.

A defence that wants to challenge a plea-bargained witness on fair-hearing grounds should file a constitutional application, and should use the chance to cross-examine that witness when it arises.

Where it sits

The case applies the division of labour in a trial by jury. The judge decides questions of law, including the admissibility of evidence, while the jurors, as judges of fact, decide what the evidence proves after the judge addresses them.

Admissibility turns on relevance and on the absence of an exclusionary rule, not on how persuasive the evidence is. An accomplice who has settled his own case by a plea bargain is not, for that reason alone, an inadmissible witness.

The case also marks the limits of the Criminal Court's jurisdiction. Claims under the right to a fair hearing are decided by the courts of constitutional jurisdiction, not by the court trying the offence.

The court named no earlier judgment. It decided the pleas on the relevance test, on article 406 of the Criminal Code and on the limits of its own jurisdiction.

Source

Criminal Court, 7 May 2026, 23/2025/1