“I wanted to help Fr Luke continue to do good in the parish, I never asked for a receipt. I gave a cheque to Fr Luke personally to be used at his own discretion,” Darren Desira said. 

He added that he did so because he knew that Fr Seguna did a lot of good for the community, whether that was for maintenance work in the church or giving out funds to people in need, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This sentiment was echoed by his brother, Mario.

“Whether it was used on A, B, C, D, or E I really didn’t care, that was up to him,” he said.

The amounts in cheques the brothers donated were €1,800 and €1,400.

Despite referencing charity work, neither could think of specific cases, insisting that this was something well-known in Marsaxlokk.  The brothers revealed that they also donated goods and sometimes provided equipment to use for work in the church. 

Both were defensive of Seguna, continuing to stress that the money they donated was always to be spent at his discretion. 

However, others did speak differently.

One parishioner, Michael Azzopardi did say that he donated a €2,000 cheque that was expressly for church use – and that included maintenance, repairs and helping people in need.

“I gave it to him and that’s it. I trusted him to spend it correctly,” he said.

Nazzarena Schiavone, a resturant owner, took the stand next. She donated over €1,200 and transferred the money via bank transfer.

She said that she gave donations for the maintenance of the church windows, and she said that the work was done.

Her claims give credence to claims that while money was deposited into his account, it was still used on the church and what donors hoped the money would be used towards.

However, the prosecution continued to press on the fact that no receipts were issued, that there was no proof her money went specifically to the windows, and that the money was in effect meant for the church and not Seguna personally.

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.

He also revealed that parish priests are technically allowed to deposit money meant for the Church in their accounts, but that must be transferred within a reasonable timeframe.

Money meant for statues or for repairs, church collections at mass, Easter blessings of homes, and so on, are donations for the Church. 

Pace Ross explained that part of the money goes to a fund to cover all remuneration of the clergy. However, it appears some richer parishes pay a much higher rate.

Defence lawyers Matthew Xuereb and Alex Scerri Herrera raised concerns as to whether Seguuna was even informed of the guidelines in place and cast doubt on whether any issues were actually flagged, given that it was not the Curia who informed the police of the issue. 

Pace Ross also said that there are questions over the source of the funds and donations found in Seguna’s ten accounts, which were held in HSBC, APS and BOV, when under questioning from Xuereb and Scerri Herrera

He also revealed that parishes are audited yearly and revealed that there was an email in 2017 sent to the Marsaxlokk parish “flagging certain outbound payments”.

However, he said the financial controller will be better placed to answer these questions. 

The morning was also defined by legal requests, with Xuereb asking for witnesses to be heard behind closed doors, insisting that there was a “crusade” against the clergyman and further testimony will only serve to “ruin his life”. 

He also made reference to media reports concerning allegations that his client spent money on pornographic websites, calling for a police investigation into the leak. Andrea Zammit, who is representing the Attorney General’s office, took umbrage with the remarks, insisting that Xuereb was making sweeping claims about the prosecution. 

Zammit was insistent that the case be heard in open court and that reporting shouldn’t be limited to avoid hurting a defendant’s feelings or embarrassing them. 

The Magistrate rejected the defence’s request as well as a request by the Attorney General’s office for witnesses to testify via video conferencing. 

The Archdiocese of Malta (Curia) was next up, requesting that they enter the case as an injured party, with Stefano Filettti representing them as the parte civile lawyer. The magistrate approved the request. 

What do you think of the testimonies?