Magistrates Court yesterday refused Isaac Marrache permission to travel to New York

The Magistrates Court yesterday refused Isaac Marrache permission to travel to New York to be with his wife, who is due to begin treatment for breast cancer within days.

Mr Marrache, who together with his two brothers is accused of a multi-million pound fraud, is currently on bail but is banned from leaving Gibraltar. 
Last week his lawyers applied to vary his bail conditions and allow him to be with his wife through the treatment and help her look after their children.

Mr Marrache had been separated from his family for 15 months with devastating effect, the court was told.

Last week defence barrister Jonathan Goldberg, QC, countered prosecution fears that Mr Marrache would abscond, highlighting that the defendant had returned voluntarily to Gibraltar last year to face the charges against him.

He also said friends and family who had deposited £400,000 in sureties with the court did not object to him going to America.

Mr Marrache had hoped to fly direct to New York from Málaga and return to Gibraltar in December in time for the next hearing in his criminal case.

But after a week deliberating on the application, a bench of three lay magistrates yesterday remained unconvinced by the arguments put forward by the defence team.

“Whilst the court can sympathise with the health of his wife and the impact which the court process is having upon Isaac Marrache’s children, these are in our view irrelevant considerations and therefore not a material change of circumstances,” they said in their ruling.

They also rejected arguments put forward by Mr Goldberg that time elapsed so far represented a reason in itself to change the bail conditions, particularly given that the case is unlikely to get to trial for another two years at least.

He said that in the UK, delays of this nature would be regarded as “a scandal”.

But yesterday the lay magistrates replied that “such delays…are well known in the Gibraltar court system…” particularly in complex cases such as this.

The bench dismissed the application.

Outside the court, Mr Marrache’s lawyer, Isaac Massias, said his client would consider appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.

Mr Marrache and his two brothers, Benjamin and Solomon, face fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Marrache & Co., formerly one of Gibraltar’s most prominent law firms.

Prosecutors allege they plundered millions of pounds from the firm’s client accounts.

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