Two police officers accused of fraudulently claiming overtime have been cleared of all charges, with a Maltese court strongly criticising the prosecution over the way it presented its evidence.Fabian Caruana and Alessio Spiteri were found not guilty of fraud and related charges on Monday, years after they were charged over their alleged involvement in the police overtime racket as reported by Times of Malta. The investigation dates back to a 2019 whistleblower report which raised concerns that numerous officers were being paid for extra duties they had not actually carried out.However, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech found that prosecutors failed to prove the case against Caruana and Spiteri beyond reasonable doubt.While the prosecution presented “voluminous” evidence, the court noted that much of it related to other officers and police motorcycles rather than the two men standing accused.This effectively left the court having to sift through extensive documentation itself to identify what evidence actually concerned Caruana and Spiteri.The court was particularly critical of what it described as a “superficial and academic” comparison between officers’ duty sheets and mobile phone location data.In Caruana’s case, investigators claimed he had received around €4,840 in abusive payments.However, the court identified discrepancies in the prosecution’s own documentation, including instances where payments were classified as fraudulent despite another exhibit recording them as “Not Paid”.Questions were also raised about the reliability of duty rosters and tracking information.The court heard that police assignments connected to the Marsa project were not necessarily confined to one location, with officers potentially redirected elsewhere because of traffic or accidents.Duty sheets could also be amended by hand, while the final documents retained by the Traffic Section did not always match those originally sent to the police control room.Meanwhile, some police motorcycles either did not have trackers installed or had tracking devices that were not functioning.The court ultimately ruled that the evidence presented did not reach the threshold required for a criminal conviction, acquitting both officers.The case formed part of the wider investigation into the police overtime racket, which has resulted in proceedings against several officers.What do you make of the court’s criticism of the prosecution’s handling of the evidence?•