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James Debono
The police are investigating the Zebbug local council over one of its computers, high-level sources have confirmed, after pornographic material was retrieved by police from the PC.
Back in June, MaltaToday had revealed a pornographic vault had been discovered in one of the council’s computers.
The police investigations are being conducted by the cyber crime unit and the vice squad. The pornographic material retrieved are not being considered “serious” from a legal point of view, police sources said.
Back in August Joe Vella, a former MLP councillor, had told MaltaToday that former mayor Paula Vella Sciriha had told him that 7,000 pornographic pictures had been retrieved from the computer used by her predecessors.
Joe Vella had also claimed that the computer was only accessible through a password known only to the locality’s mayors.
Paula Vella Sciriha, has always refused to comment on this issue.
Sources have informed MaltaToday that MLP officials had banned Sciriha from speaking to the media on her discovery. During a meeting held in the MLP headquarters in June, the former mayor was told she would face serious consequences if she spoke on this issue.
Vella Sciriha resigned from the Zebbug local council in November.
Her resignation followed a head-on collision with her predecessor, former mayor Joe Ciantar, amid arguments on the council’s financial situation, bring-in rubbish sites, and rumours on Vella Sciriha’s porn discovery.
Writing in MaltaToday in July, her predecessor Joseph Ciantar acknowledged that when he became mayor he had found “material which was not in any way compatible or connected with the day-to-day running of council matters,” stored in the same computer.
But he also insisted that the material was created prior to April 2002, before his appointment as mayor. Ciantar also claimed that in March 2005, Vella Sciriha, “without the council’s knowledge or consent,” had taken one of the council’s computers to a company in order to retrieve all deleted material and record it onto a compact disc.
On 25 June, a meeting was held at the Labour HQ in Hamrun where party officials carried out “a thorough examination and evaluation of the contents” of this CD.
Ciantar has claimed the officials present had concluded he was in no way involved in the compilation of the material in question.
But the MLP’s own investigation has not put an end to the Zebbug porn saga, with the police now investigating the matter.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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