Wiretaps declared inadmissible in €30 million Mater Dei IT contract bribery case

Since their arraignment in January 2007, the men's lawyers had argued that the intercepts were inadmissible as evidence because they had not been obtained legally

Noel Xuereb and Pierre Mercieca stand charged with several counts of bribery, corruption and embezzlement related to a €70 million hospital project
Noel Xuereb and Pierre Mercieca stand charged with several counts of bribery, corruption and embezzlement related to a €70 million hospital project

A court has refused to allow the police to exhibit wiretaps in a bribery case over the €30 million tender for IT equipment at Mater Dei Hospital, after it ruled that they had failed to show they had been properly authorised.

Noel Xuereb from St Julian’s, a MITTS employee who had been seconded to government as a core information systems manager and who also served on the tender’s evaluation committee, and Pierre Mercieca of Attard, a consultant to the Italian Inso SpA consortium that eventually won the €30 million tender, stand charged with several counts of bribery, corruption and embezzlement related to the hospital project.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale was ruling on a request filed by lawyers Joe Giglio and Kathleen Grima on behalf of Xuereb and Mercieca, in which the court was asked to declare evidence obtained through wiretapping to be inadmissible as the court had not been shown evidence that they had been sanctioned by the minister responsible at the time.

During the course of their investigation, the police had asked for, and obtained, recordings of phonecalls to and from the accused which had been intercepted by the security services. These phone intercepts had then been exhibited as evidence in the case against them.

But since their arraignment in January 2007, the men's lawyers had argued that the intercepts were inadmissible as evidence because they had not been obtained legally.

The Security Services Act states that every phone tap or intercept is to be authorised in writing at ministerial level. This warrant was not exhibited by the prosecution in this case.

In his decree, issued today, Magistrate Depasquale noted that the Court of Appeal had established in the 2012 appeal Attorney General vs Head of the Security Services, Registrar of Court and Marco Pace, that ministerial authorisation for wiretaps was required to prove that they had been obtained legally. “No court can permit illegalities and therefore has the duty to see that if an intercept has been made, infringing the subject's right to privacy, this has been made legally,” that judgment had read.

Magistrate Depasquale, quoting the Marco Pace judgment, today ruled that it was the duty of the prosecution to show that the intercepts had been legally made. In the absence of the warrants being exhibited, the court said it could not but take the opposite to be true and declared them to be inadmissible.

The case continues.