Court overturns trapper’s conviction

An appeals court has overturned a man’s conviction for illegal trapping since it had not been adequately proven that the man was on the site where the illegal trapping occurred.

Emanuel Muscat, a resident of Dingli, was fined €700 for trapping during the close season in November 2012 by a magistrate’s court.

Mr Muscat denied the claim that he had admitted the charge to the police sergeant, instead clarifying that he had only asserted that the trapping in question had belonged to him.

He then produced a doctor’s certificate as evidence that on that particular day he was at home on sick leave.