Bail was granted against a deposit of €20,000 and a personal guarantee of €30,000. He is also not allowed to enter Marsaxlokk. 

Seguna is facing charges of misappropriating around €500,000 from 150 parishioners. The case has piqued public interest given his position and claims that he allegedly spent €148,000 on pornographic websites amid the priest’s “sexual crisis”. 

What has raised eyebrows is Seguna holding 10 separate accounts at BOV, HSBC and APS. Meanwhile, one account, called ‘masses’, had seen around €107,000 withdrawn over six years, while having a balance of €80,000.

Seguna insisted that those were personal funds donated to him and has maintained that other cash and cheque donations went directly to the church’s maintenance, community work, and charity. 

Several testimonies heard in this morning’s sitting and the session after the afternoon break seemed to confirm some of these claims.

Countless people who donated to Seguna came to his defence on the witness stand. Some said that they donated him in his personal capacity, while others said they gave money for work in the church which they said they saw completed. 

Earlier in the sitting, Michael Pace Ross, who leads the administration of the Archdiocese of Malta, revealed that donations given expressly to the parish priests or priests themselves can be kept by them.

However, he revealed that there were clear guidelines detailing how funds should be distributed to the church. A document detailing those guidelines was submitted to the court.

It remains to be seen how the case will develop and how much of the €500,000 allegedly misappropriated went into Seguna’s pockets or whether it simply bypassed Curia’s procedure and reached its desired destination.