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Karl Schembri
A Transport Authority driving test examiner who is being investigated in the cash-for-licences scandal ran over the elderly father of Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri and former MLP President Manwel Cuschieri while he was driving a van in a drunken state as the 71-year-old was walking on a zebra crossing in Sliema, MaltaToday can reveal.
Nicholas Magrin, who is one of the five examiners arrested and interrogated by the police over the last weeks in the wake of MaltaToday bribery revelations was driving with three times the amount of alcohol permitted for drivers when he hit the elderly Cuschieri on 29 April.
According to the records filed at the Sliema police station, Magrin was “visibly drunk” and “could not stand on his feet” when he hit the man at around 7.45pm. Three breathalyser tests marked his alcohol levels at 103mg, 92mg and 87mg respectively, way above the permitted 35mg.
The police however have not yet issued any charges against Magrin on this specific accident, despite the damages suffered by the victim and the high alcohol levels registered by a breathalyser test.
Even the Transport Authority did not take any disciplinary measures against Magrin, who is the son of the same authority’s Management Enforcement Officer in the Planning Directorate Alfred Magrin, but just transferred him internally from the testing department to its headquarters as security officer.
Contacted yesterday, Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett said he had been informed about the case by the authority’s chief executive and defended the internal transfer as there were no police proceedings initiated against Magrin.
“The authority could not take disciplinary measures if the police did not present any charges against him,” Mugliett said. “So we removed him from the post of examiner, as he was clearly not the right man for the job, and gave him a transfer.”
Mugliett denied that Magrin’s father, as a high-level authority manager, influenced the decision to keep him instead of suspending him.
“His father was informed by the chief executive after the decision to transfer him was taken,” the minister said.
Only two weeks ago, after he was held under arrest by the police and interrogated in connection with the bribery scandal, Magrin was put by the authority on forced leave together with three other driving examiners. Another examiner was interrogated last week and subsequently also put on forced leave, bringing up the number of implicated examiners to five out of a total of six.
Police investigations into the Transport Authority’s driving test bribery scandal had been going on for almost a year, culminating with the arrest of all six examiners in the last two weeks following this newspaper’s revelations published at the end of May. Still, the authority’s Chief Executive, Gianfranco Selvaggi, downplayed the scandal early last week as evidence of a wide-ranging racket kept emerging.
“Everything has yet to be proven,” he said.
One of the investigated examiners, Roderick Galea, is known to be a close canvasser of Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett. The other authority examiners on forced leave are Jason Buttigieg, Ian Pace and Paul Grech. The only examiner still on duty is David Collins, originally summoned by the police but released soon afterwards with Grech two weeks ago.
Police sources say it is now a matter of days until the Economic Crimes Section draws up the complete charge sheet to arraign the five examiners, who would have allegedly asked driving students to pay money in exchange for assurances that they would pass the driving test and receive a licence.
The scandal would also involve at least one motoring school based in Birzebbuga, Swallow Garage, whose owner Saviour Abela had confirmed to MaltaToday that his company was implicated in the scandal.
“There was an employee… I sacked him,” he said, distancing himself from the alleged briberies. “I won’t speak any further.”
Last Friday, MaltaStar reported Abela’s daughter, Larissa Abela, alleging that the examiners used to ask her father’s driving school for bribes to pass his students.
According to Abela, her father was forced to pay examiners otherwise his students would fail their tests.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/05/28/t2.html
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/06/11/top_story.html
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