iv. Assisting a criminal to escape from these Islands

constitutes an act of complicity within the general definition of acts of complicity contained in sec. 43, is required; a mere negative concurrence or even a positive concurrence which does not amount to actual facilitating or to an act of complicity as there defined would not be sufficient.

But except for this, no other application of the rules of complicity has been made in the case of these persons just as the rules of complicity have not been applied in the case of the persons in charge of the custody, etc of the fugitive. In fact, the aiding or abetting, of the escape on the part of any person not in charge of the custody etc. is an offence per se and punishable even where the escape itself does not constitute an offence for the person escaping. Moreover, the punishment is fixed not by reference to the punishment which might have been incurred by the person escaping but, as we have seen, by reference to the punishments prescribed for the persons in charge of the custody etc. and conniving at the escape.

"La reità dei terzi nella fuga dei detenuti e’ una reità! Principale, che può star da se independentamenta da quella dei detenuti stessi che evadono e se vien denotata sotto il nome di complicità, cio, deriva unicamenta dal bisogno di esprimerla nei caratteri che la costituiscono o la rendono punibile agli occhi delle leggi., Trae -illegible worddunque seco uno pena a parte, che nella sua qualità e nel suo grado viene indi a fissarsi alla base di quella che si ora già prescritto contro i custodi conniventi, diminuendosi bensì di un grado (except where the escape is aggravated, in which case no reduction applies, as we have said)227 .

iv. Assisting a criminal to escape from these Islands

Sec. 155 makes it an offence for any person knowingly to provide the means for effecting an escape from the Island of Malta and its Dependencies whether of a person under arrest or sentence for a crime, or of a person under warrant of arrest for a crime, of a person who has committed a crime although not yet sentenced nor under arrest or warrant of arrest. The punishment for this offence gradually increases according to the gravity of the crime for which the fugitive is punishable as measured by the

227 Roberti, loc. cit., 858