Paqpaqli case ends in acquittals

In an 88-page judgment, Magistrate Victor Axiak cleared Tonio Cini, Agostino De Giorgio, Jonathan Bruno and Brian Gatt of charges of involuntarily causing grievous bodily harm to multiple victims and causing property damage. The result is legally precise and, for many people who remember the crash, emotionally awkward. The court did not describe a well-run event. It described an unsafe one.

According to Newsbook’s report of the judgment, serious shortcomings marked the organisation and safety protocols of the charity motoring show at Malta International Airport. Along Taxiway Lima, safety barriers had been left unanchored and unfilled with water. That is not a decorative failing. A crowd barrier that is effectively light plastic can look like protection right up to the moment it is tested.

It was tested when a Porsche 918 Spyder lost control at a chicane during a high-speed live demonstration near the Lufthansa Technik hangars, clipped a curb, smashed through the barriers and ploughed into spectators. Dozens were injured, including children, with many suffering grievous and permanent injuries. Multiple parked vehicles were also heavily damaged.

The acquittals turned on a narrower question than the facts of the crash itself. The magistrate held that criminal liability is personal. The prosecution, the court found, failed to establish beyond reasonable doubt that these four individual committee members had specific personal legal duties that directly caused the crash. Their administrative roles within the committee could not be directly linked to personal criminal negligence under the law.

That distinction matters, and it will frustrate some people for understandable reasons. There is an obvious difference between saying an event was badly and unsafely organised, and saying a particular defendant’s personal criminal responsibility has been proved. The first, on this account, was clear enough. The second was not.

Newsbook reports that the case arose from the annual Paqpaqli għall-Istrina charity event, held to raise funds for the Malta Community Chest Fund. An immediate magisterial inquiry followed the crash, gathering hundreds of witness accounts and expert reports. The proceedings, according to the report, spanned over eleven years and involved hundreds of witnesses, expert testimony and multiple presiding magistrates.

In late 2023, driver Paul Bailey and six other co-organisers admitted charges and received community service and probation orders. One other individual had previously been cleared due to non-involvement. This ruling concerns the final four defendants who had maintained their innocence.

The court’s concluding remarks, as reported by Newsbook, expressed hope that the lessons and official safety recommendations from the tragedy will help ensure that such a disaster does not recur at public mass events in Malta.