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Karl Schembri
Transport Authority Management Enforcement Officer Alfred Magrin had threatened another officer who found his son Nicolai Magrin unfit to be employed as driving examiner when the first recruitment drive for driving examiners was made, MaltaToday can reveal.
The incident, which sheds light on Magrin’s influence within the authority and confirms other incidents of threats and blackmail outlined in the inquiry into the allegations of bribery, goes back to the time when the authority was still being set up under then Transport Minister Censu Galea.
Nicolai Magrin, who was facing drug problems, was found to be unfit for the job and listed as such in an internal report submitted to the Chief Executive. But Nicolai Magrin’s father, a former police officer, had threatened the authority’s officer and insisted with the Chief Executive that his son be employed as examiner.
Despite a report made by the officer about the threats he received, the authority sat on the incident and allowed Magrin to work as a driving examiner despite the recommendation not to take him on.
According to the board of inquiry set up by Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett to investigate the licences bribery scandal, Magrin had “serious substance abuse problems even at the time of recruitment” but the inquiry ignored altogether his father’s threats and pressure to keep him and the internal report detailing his bullying tactics.
The inquiry added that Magrin’s problem “should have been given particular attention given that one behavioural condition that driving examiners were to seek to address in candidates undertaking driving tests was that they should be able to retain the full use of their faculties while driving by being, amongst other things, free of any traits of addiction that could pose a safety hazard on the road.”
Last May, Nicolai Magrin ran over the elderly father of Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri who was walking on a zebra crossing in Sliema while he was driving in a drunken state. The authority took no action against Magrin until details of the accident were reported for the first time by MaltaToday.
Now he also stands accused on charges of bribery together with four other examiners implicated in the cash for licences scandal.
The inquiry board also found out that Alfred Magrin had even threatened the former testing department head, Major Mark Sammut Tagliaferro, after the latter requested that Nicolai be removed from examiner after it had been shown “conclusively that Nicolai Magrin is completely unfit and unsuitable to act as a driving examiner” following the May accident.
Among the threats reported from Alfred Magrin, Maj. Sammut Tagliaferro lists that “if they don’t stop picking on his son Nicolai ‘it would be the worse for them’”.
The son himself had told the other driving examiners “on more than one occasion that if he ‘sinks’, the others (including Sammut Tagliaferro) will sink with him”.
Although Nicolai Magrin is suspended and facing bribery charges, his father remains untouched despite the inquiry report’s damning evidence about him.
A spokesperson for the authority said: “With regards to Alfred Magrin certain allegations came out during the investigating enquiry and are currently being investigated.”
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/07/23/t15.html
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