Police overtime fraud: Court clears two traffic branch officers of all charges

Two police officers have been cleared of filing fraudulent allowance claims for extra duties, after a court ruled that the evidence against them was too weak.

Sergeant Francis Larry Sciberras, 51 and Constable, later Sergeant, Matthew Azzopardi, aged 46, had been among over 40 officers charged in 2020 as part of a crackdown on overtime fraud in the police force. 

The officers, who both worked at the traffic branch, had been charged with complicity in fraud, making false declarations to a public authority and committing crimes that they had been duty bound to prevent. 

The offences were alleged to have taken place in 2019 and were related to extra traffic control duties required in support of a number of infrastructure projects.

Magistrate Rachel Montebello handed down judgement yesterday, in what are the first two of the scores of cases to be decided. Other related cases are ongoing before magistrates Leonard Caruana, Marse Anne Farrugia, Ian Farrugia, and Claire Stafrace Zammit.

The investigation had been triggered by anonymous reports of a protection racket in the police as well as claims of fuel theft and absenteeism. It had focused primarily on the absenteeism claims, in particular the allocation of voluntary extra duties at the Traffic branch.

Inspector Lianne Bonello, prosecuting, had told the court that the defendants were participants in a plot, organised by several Traffic branch officers, to fraudulently claim overtime payments for hours when they had not been at work - a claim which the defendants had denied from the outset.

The duties in question would be requested by Transport Malta during the construction of the Marsa flyovers and other large projects, according to the prosecution, which submitted that the officers were often not at their designated posts.

They had also been accused of working - and claiming additional payment for - extra duties which had been carried out during their normal working hours.

Sergeant Azzopardi had testified that he would perform the extra duties that were allocated to him and that he had asked not to be given extra work. 

Payments for the extra duties would be received several months later, he said, denying having ever received payments which appeared excessive in relation to the hours he worked.

Azzopardi, and a number of other officers facing similar charges, told the court that while carrying out these extra duties for Transport Malta, he would not be going around on his police motorcycle to wherever he was required and would not be in a fixed location.

His instructions were to ensure that traffic did not accumulate in the area, he said, denying having ever abandoned that area or performing extra duties during his normal working hours. 

Sciberras opted not to testify, but had released a statement during his interrogation in which he said that he would receive updated instructions to go to different zones where works were being carried out by Infrastructure Malta. He would do this on his service motorcycle, the Sergeant explained, denying having ever carried out extra duties during his normal working hours.

The two officers had no involvement in the invoicing process for the extra duties, observed the court.

In both cases the men were acquitted, magistrate Rachel Montebello observing that no “concrete and conclusive” evidence to support the allegations relating to overtime fraud, carrying out extra duties during normal working hours or performing other duties unrelated to their extra duty detail, had been exhibited.  

Neither had the court seen proof of communications between the defendants and the alleged mastermind of the claimed conspiracy, it said.

Lawyer Mario Buttigieg appeared for Azzopardi while lawyer Ludwig Caruana represented Sciberras.