|
Karl Schembri
The ongoing criminal case against a banker who stands accused of forging his wife’s signatures to obtain bank drafts is exposing the extent of the laxity and alleged complicity of bank colleagues at senior levels.
The man, whose name is mysteriously banned from publication by court order, happens to be the cousin of a very prominent politician.
The banker worked as an investments advisor from a branch office in Paola with a leading financial investments firm after he left the bank that employed him for 15 years in October 2004. Even the name of the bank has been banned.
The accused was a financial planning manager – a position he still holds today in a different company.
It also transpires that although an internal bank inquiry in January 2004 had found him guilty of using a forged signature of his wife to take joint bank loans and of cashing a cheque issued to a furniture company, the bank never referred the case to the police for criminal investigation. The wife’s debt commitments were nullified, although the banker kept working with the same bank for nine months since the inquiry’s conclusions.
The wife of the accused told police inspector Angelo Gafà that her husband would never let her view their joint account statements during their marriage. She discovered the alleged forgeries upon leaving house, when she started querying banks about their joint accounts.
According to the evidence brought against the banker in court last week the bank had commissioned handwriting experts Joseph Gaffiero and Martin Bajada after the wife reported that she never signed for pending joint bank loans totalling Lm5,000.
The two experts concluded that the signatures were forged. Gaffiero was even more conclusive in his report: “There is a strong indication that the false signatures could have been executed by [the accused].”
One of the furniture company’s directors said the cheque presented as evidence with the accused’s and his wife’s signatures were never deposited or cashed by any of the company’s directors.
He insisted with investigators that despite a quotation issued to the accused and his wife, the couple never ordered or bought any furniture.
Investigators found out that a Lm2,000 bank draft statement had two stamps on in it, one showing it was “placed to the credit” – meaning that it was supposedly deposited in the furniture company’s account, and the other stamp showing the amount was withdrawn in cash.
But in his deposition to court, Inspector Gafà explained that he actually found that instead of the furniture company’s account, the cheque was deposited in another bank manager’s account stationed in Fgura, who then withdrew the cash from his account the following day.
From interrogations to a junior bank clerk who had processed the transaction, the investigator found that the manager had ordered the clerk in question to deposit the money in his account so that it could then be withdrawn.
It was upon this final piece of information that the prosecution then issued a warrant of arrest against the accused and the manager.
In a statement he gave to interrogators, the manager admitted he had made the manoeuvres so that he could pass the cash to the accused by converting a bank draft intended to finance the furniture company into a personal fund.
The accused had admitted in his police interrogation that he had never approached the furniture company, but added that his colleague had provided him with quotations from the furniture company to justify the loan, which from investigations were allegedly found to be taken from other bank draft files.
However, the accused denied with the police he had forged his wife’s signatures and claimed that his wife knew about the loan.
Last week, defence lawyer Pawlu Lija, who called for the ban on the accused’s name and the former bank he used to work with, also insisted with the magistrate to physically ban reporters from being in the court during the proceedings but Mizzi ordered them to remain to do their job.
The case continues on 10 January next year.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
|
